


Come And Go With Me

by distinguished_like



Series: Come And Go With Me [1]
Category: John Lennon - Fandom, John Lennon/Paul McCartney - Fandom, Paul McCartney - Fandom, The Beatles
Genre: 1950s, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Beatles Slash, Come And Go With Me, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Humour, M/M, Sexual Content, m/m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 94,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distinguished_like/pseuds/distinguished_like
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When two oblivious teenage boys meet for the very first time in the summer of 1957, a transcending bond to be passed on through decades to come makes its initial formation; a sanctuary, a home, a secret, a storm, a song, and a love to surpass the regular circumstances of time itself; it all starts in a city called Liverpool - but where will it take them from there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I make no accusations to the sexuality of the characters involved; it is solely a work of fiction, and I do not own any characters or places mentioned.
> 
> All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Please bear in mind this is due to be a particularly lengthy fanfiction, and so I must press that patience is indeed a virtue.
> 
> Please feel free to let me know what you think; it would mean a lot to me to hear all opinions, good or bad. Thank you!

It was remarkably pleasant outside on the day of the St. Peter's Garden Fête.

The year was 1957, and for what felt like the first time in a _very_ long time, summer seemed to be in full bloom. People had grown accustomed to the gloomy, miserable weather that usually covered the skies over Liverpool, but granted, people knew that the weathering conditions could be worse.

Could live in Manchester, for instance.

But for this one day – the 6th of July, to be precise – the weather was completely fitting for the summer-time occasions. The sky was a light blue, almost baby-like, and the clouds had mostly, though not completely, dispersed out of the way; the few that remained were wispy and thin, like a small crowd of primary school children who had wandered off from their designated groups on a school trip. The light, feathery breeze was definitely still there, but it wasn't strong enough or cold enough to negatively affect anybody. If anything, it was soothing. A soft, silk material dancing smoothly around anything it came across, working as a blanket for the people who had contributed to the summer-time feelings by joining in with the celebrations of the season having left the house in short sleeved dresses or shirts, the length of the women's skirts lifted considerably closer towards their knees rather than covering up a good majority of their shins.

In the village where the fête was to take place, in an almost forgotten field behind a practically _ancient_ church, there was a bus stop.

There wasn't anything special about this bus stop. It wasn't even that close to ... well, anything. Odds were, if you got off your ride at that stop, you'd still have to do a good, long walk to wherever you were heading, so it wasn't a 'popular' bus stop, if there was ever such a thing, or a memorial for a local war hero, or a local genius, or anything. And even if it was such a thing, would it _really_ be recognised as anything other than just a bus stop?

But that bus stop did, eventually, matter to one particular boy.

Nothing special happened there, though. Not ever.

But the day Paul McCartney got off a random bus on that bus stop, a bus stop he had never got off at before, he always considered it as a factor in a chain of events that led up to ... well, the rest of his life. He didn’t think about it all the time, mind; the bus stop, that is. But when he sits by himself some days, thinking about, well, _everything,_ it’ll always come up anyway. The bus stop wasn’t the only factor, of course.

For example, he remembers getting on his regular bus to school only a few days prior to the day of the fête.

The weather was gradually getting hotter, and so as Paul hopped on board the familiar vehicle to make the familiar journey to the Liverpool Institute For Boy’s site, he felt particularly agitated and clammy beneath his dark school uniform, his white shirt – hidden beneath a jumper _and_ a school blazer – clung to his skin as the sweat that had begun to build up during his wait for the bus worked as a dreadful, uncomfortable glue between his flesh and the damp fabric of his school shirt.

He took his usual spot on the bus, and that was stood up, clinging onto a metal bar as his only support.

The bus was a little bit less crowded than usual, and it took him long enough to realise it, but when he did he assumed it was because most people would be wagging it; taking the opportunity of a day in the sunshine as a chance for a good day off. The bus had already been driving for a few minutes before an excited yell of "Oi! McCartney!" awakened Paul from his numb daze.

His eyelids flickered, dark lashes batting against the pale skin on his cheeks that were glistening slightly with sweat. His eyes settled on a familiar figure, belonging to a lad he'd not actually been acquainted with for all that long. Well, that wasn't quite true – they had both been in the same school for a good four years or so, and they were good friends, but at the start of their school life, they hadn't been that close. Well, anyway, the tall, lanky body with the bold dark hair sitting smartly on the top of his head belonged to Ivan Vaughan, an exceptionally alright bloke that Paul had grown very fond of over the last year or so especially.

Every time Paul sees him, he's reminded of how curious he had been of Ivan's name when he had first met him. In comparison to the, what Paul considered 'just normal' names he had grew up with – names like James, Mike and Mary – ‘Ivan Vaughan' seemed oddly foreign to him, and once, after a few beers down the local park with a few of the lads from school (ones Paul hardly knew well enough to call 'friends'), Paul vaguely remembers asking something about Ivan's heritage (perhaps not in the most polite way he could have managed, intoxicated with quite a bit more alcohol than his fourteen-year-old body could manage), and recalls – again, only _vaguely_ – being assured that Ivan was born and bred on British soils.

Ever since, he's subconsciously thought of Ivan as 'British Ivan'. Just because it stuck with him, even though he had realised rather long ago by then that it wasn't even that weird a name.

"Aye, Ivan?" Paul replied, his voice hoarse having not spoken properly all morning.

"Sit down, lad, there's plenty of room 'ere," Ivan said as he gestured to the empty seat beside him.

Paul was still in a bit of a daydream, and as he took an almost mindless step forward towards the gap in between the two aisles of seats, he almost lurched on top of a younger looking boy with a lot of brown hair sat atop his head, quiffed back in what you wish you could call a 'ridiculous' hair do, but you really couldn't. Most people only _wished_ they could get their hair to defy gravity in such a way that this lad's could.

Thankfully, before he flew head first into the boy's lap, Paul caught hold of the back of the seat he was sat on.

"Shit; sorry, mate," he muttered as he stumbled against the shake of the bus to sit beside Ivan.

He had just missed the beginning of a quiet giggle from the boy, who had started to say, "Oh, y'alright, Paul?" before he realised that Paul was actually heading towards the seats two rows behind him.

Ivan laughed openly as Paul slumped down lazily next to him. "You're in a fuckin' world of your own, you are, McCartney," he had said, reaching into his blazer pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes - a packet that Paul figured he had probably nicked from his dad's coat, and he would get a proper telling off for later on in the day.

"Songs stuck in me' head," Paul shrugged as he took an offered ciggy out from between Ivan's fingers and slotted it between his lips, waiting to be handed a match from the matchbox that his friend had just pulled out of his inside pocket.

"Oh, yeah?" Ivan inquired, an eyebrow lifted towards Paul as he struck a match and lit the cigarette between his own lips, making an effort to keep the match lit to hand over to Paul. "Which ones?"

"Oh, no, not hits or anythin'. Had the auntie's around at mine yesterday night, and the old man was on the piano for the length of the day," he paused briefly as he stood up and flicked the match out of the slightly opened window of the bus, before sitting back down and taking a long inhale of his cigarette – he'd kept it well hidden, but he was practically _gasping_ for a smoke by that point. Wasn't supposed to smoke around his family, and granted he'd spent the whole day with them the day before, there wasn't a chance for a cig there at all. He sighed out clouds of smoke, his eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment of relief. "Just little family tunes. Y'know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah, get it," he replied. "You play alright as well, don't you? Bet you had a go, didn't ya' Paulie?" Ivan grinned knowingly. "You're always havin' a go on any damn instrument you get handed at parties and that."

Paul chuckled. "'course I did, Vaughan. But you're not one to speak; you can be just as bad."

"Piss off, I'm no musician," he paused. "Well, not like you are, anyway."

There was a few seconds silence by that point, in which Paul had simply shrugged his shoulders. A part of him never really knew how to reply to people when they started to talk to him about _his_ musical interests, especially when they complimented him. But that didn't really extinguish the enormous part of him that lit up in a blaze of glory whenever somebody acknowledged his musical ability. He supposed Ivan was aware of it, anyway, because he shot him a knowing smirk before turning his gaze away to the window.

Paul had started to appreciate the silence, as his cigarette started to shrink to a stub, and he embraced the relief it brought to him after being deprived of one for a whole day. But just then, Ivan spoke again.

"Hey, you comin' down to Woolton fête this Saturday?" He asked, rather excitedly, taking Paul off guard and causing him to jump slightly, making some of the ash at the end of his ciggy crumble off and hit the floor of the bus.

Paul scoffed. "Why? What's going on? Dancing around the Maypole?" His mouth quirked into a cheeky smirk. "Singing hymns behind the church with the choir? Ivan, lad, you've gone all soft! Thought you were a part-time rock n' roller!"

Ivan took a very long moment to roll his eyes at his friend's cheekiness. "It's skiffle, actually, but yeah, I am, you twit, and that's what I mean. The Quarrymen are performing there, and I reckon you might wanna' get down there n' all, show them a bit of your stuff. Bring your guitar down with you," Paul recognised the name of the band, and he remembered it as the band that Ivan had explained that he played bass for on occasion. This piqued Paul's interests slightly, so he waited for Ivan to finish speaking. "It'll be an alright day, I reckon, and I bet the lads will like you and all. You're a left-handed legend!"

"Ironic, that. The bird I fingered behind the bus stop the other day said the exact same thing!" Paul feigned a surprised face, and, again, a part of him started to glow with a satisfying, proud feeling as Ivan coiled forward in laughter, dropping his ciggy on the floor as he did so.

Paul chuckled along for a bit, but before their conversation could be resumed, the bus came to an abrupt halt, and Ivan hadn't even had the chance to sit up straight before his head collided with the seat in front of him. Paul let out a loud, quick laugh as Ivan grumbled miserably, rubbing the top of his head fiercely with the palm of his hand.

Most of the boys on the bus stumbled off in a large crowd, and all headed in the same direction towards the doors of Liverpool Institute.

Just before Paul started to walk off in his own direction, Ivan grabbed hold of his shoulder. "You gonna’ pop down then, on Saturday? C'mon, 'Cartney, it'll be a right laugh!"

Paul shrugged, pulling an 'I dunno, really' sort of face. "I might do. I'll talk to you about it a little later on, mate. See you in a bit." Paul waved once and before Ivan could inquire further, he was heading off through the halls of the school.

And that's what got him to where he was on that summer Saturday.

***

Despite the overall beauty of the Saturday day, the walk from the bus stop to the church was far from enjoyable. It wasn't _boiling_ weather, but it was hot enough to be noticed, and for Paul, with the weight of his acoustic on his back, on top of the white jacket he had elected to wear, his body wanted to cave forward onto the – suddenly comfy looking – ground.

But he kept walking, Ivan by his side, until they arrived at the church; it was around half past two in the afternoon by that point, and the first thing Paul remembers noticing as they made their way towards the field at the back of the building, was the music.

It wasn't a familiar tune, mind; it was very ... well, skiffle. It was all really on-the-spot like, but it wasn't _bad._ Not at all, because Paul felt the need to _rush_ to the source of the scruffy beats, the uncoordinated rhythm – mostly because it was the only thing he was aware he could understand there. If truth be told, he wouldn't hang around Woolton much. It wasn't really his area, so coming down to the fête was somewhat an experience for Paul.

Still, he wasn't eager to spend the afternoon mostly lost, not really knowing what to do with himself.

However, for the most part, they just drifted through the field. The skiffle music Paul first heard was always there, though, in the background; it was very distinguishable from the other sideshows going on; other little groups, the odd banjo player here and there, a choir performance or two.

Paul sniggered to himself at that. The choir work was gorgeous, don't get him wrong. But he recalled teasing Ivan about singing with the choir at the fête on the bus to school the other day, and it pleased him slightly to know that he had been partly right, even though he had only really been joking.

Still, there was _always_ that continuous unchoreographed melody, pouring from a little Tannoy system.

Soon enough, him and Ivan found themselves stood deeper into the field within a small (but honestly still decent sized for a fête) audience, watching the Quarrymen.

Paul remembers being, eh, mildly impressed by them. They were good, and _God_ there was a tune that ended up stuck in his head for a good few days after the whole event.

But he found himself especially drawn to the lead singer.

He held himself very confident, despite the slight trembling of the truck he was stood on as the band around him moved and stomped their feet with the music they were producing. At first, what struck Paul were the laid back clothes he wore; a red and white checked shirt and dark blue jeans, particularly tight around his thighs. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing the collar bones that seemed highlighted somehow by the way the sun hit them. His sleeves were rolled up lazily, and you could literally _see_ the veins in his hands and arms pulsing as he strummed the sunburst acoustic he played; Paul thought that if he played any harder, he'd find himself with a snapped string or two, and the musician in him desperately wanted to tell him, but he didn't. He stood where he was, just watching.

The fella' had auburn hair, too, which for some reason distinguished him anyhow from the rest of the group. Paul imagined it had something to do with the sun literally glowing off it, reflecting in an almost golden way, the curls that were brought up towards the top of his head, in an obviously desperate attempt to resemble the way Elvis Presley wore his hair sometimes, bouncing up and down with the movement of where he was standing.

In fact, Paul realised he seldom looked away from the boy; he was by far the more coordinated in the group – he definitely knew what he was doing, the way he smirked and winked at the girls watching, and how every now and again he'd take a glance around at the rest of the band, giving them a certain _look_ that instantly worked as an instruction. He was in charge, and it was clear, and Paul was hypnotised by the way he worked. It was different, intriguing, majestic.

And ... _hang on a minute_.

Paul knew this song. He'd heard it a while ago playing in a record shop (he used to go to them whenever he could, wherever he found them. Most of the time he couldn't afford to actually buy any records, but he could listen to them in the little booths that the stores often had).

…or did he know this song?

The lyrics were a bit off. He doesn't remember them going like that when he'd heard it.

" _Love, love me, darling, come and go with me..._ " those few words confirmed it. Paul definitely knew the song; it was that new one by the Del ... Romans? Vikings? Something or other like that. They were good, nonetheless, and the song was called Come And Go With Me, that much he knew for certain, but...

" _Down, down, down to the, penitentiary..._ "

_What?_

Those were blues lyrics, absolutely, but they weren't from this song, and...

 _Oh God._ Paul understood then. He can't have known the words; this song was a new release in the UK. There's no way that this lad could have learnt the _whole_ song within a few weeks. _Bloody genius._ He was making the words up! Paul laughed then, and tapping his foot along to the song, nudged Ivan and grinned, indicating his enjoyment, making it evident.

"Who's that one?" Paul asked Ivan, pointing directly at the singer. "In fact, whilst we're at it; tell us who they all are, will ya?"

Ivan leaned closer to Paul, removing the newly lit cigarette from his mouth to speak. "Well, that one, at the front – that one's John. You know him; I've told you about him loads of times! Fantastic, he is. Crackin' lad. And, uh ... the blonde fellow with the washboard – that's Pete. Uh, the drummer's called Colin but I don't really know him too well. Eric Griffiths is the bloke on the other guitar, and Rod's on banjo. Oh, yeah, and Len's on that tea chest bass. He's the one I cover for every now and again." Ivan paused for a moment as Paul laughed again at another improvised lyric. "You like 'em, then?"

"They're alright," Paul said, nodding in beat to the music.

There was another moment of silence between the two, before Ivan spoke again. "Oh, Phil's over there – you gonna come over and say 'allo or are you alright here?"

"I'm fine here," Paul answered before he could even consider his words properly; he instantly felt rude, not going to say hello to a mate from school, but he was content watching the band go on.

Ivan chuckled. "'ite, I'll come back for you when they finish up; that won't be long, I reckon. I'll introduce you. You just ... warm your fingers up in whatever way you see fit," he said with a wink, earning a giggle from Paul, before he slipped away to Phil who was purchasing a drink for himself and for Ivan.

Ivan was right. The afternoon show ended soon enough, and Paul soon came back to his natural, more focused, senses. He had some lemonade in his hand, that he'd practically forgotten about, and he took a very casual sip from it as he spun around, searching for Ivan.

In fact, he didn't have to. Ivan and Phil were both beside him in an instant, and the Quarrymen were already heading inside the church hall with their instruments as Ivan gripped Paul's arm tightly and started uttering something to Phil, which apparently caused Phil to stop and jog off to a group of girls.

 _Ah, the pull of the evening_ , Paul concluded.

They were inside the church hall sooner than Paul could really comprehend and Pete and Rod both snapped their head's upwards, staring at Ivan, and then at Paul, and then back to Ivan, trying to figure out what was going on and who the extra boy was, and why he was walking towards them with a guitar on his back and a half empty cup of cheap lemonade in his hand.

"Alright, John?" Ivan yelled, and John looked up from his guitar instantly.

Snapped string.

 _Paul, you're the Sherlock Holmes of deduction,_ he couldn't help thinking of himself, rather smugly grinning as he reached the band, and John stared at him.

With a closer look at him, Paul realised just how suave John really looked. Sideboards and the hair at the sides of his head gelled back almost perfectly; Paul, for a moment, felt the need to silently worship this lad in a way he used to appreciate Elvis Presley.

"How goes, Ivan?" John replied. "Who's your mate?"

Paul's eyes widened and he glanced to Ivan for some sort of protection, waiting for Ivan to explain, but to Paul's dismay, Ivan coolly replied with:

"Well, like you say. He's me' mate." And Ivan gave the same expectant look that Paul had given him a moment ago.

"And who is he?" Paul looked back at John, and Paul's eyes were instantly drawn towards the older boy's and, for whatever reason, it soothed him enough for him to take up the responsibility of introducing himself.

"Paul," he said, his own confidence surprising him as he held out his hand to John, who was sat on a chair, bent over his guitar.

"John," he replied, taking hold of Paul's hand in a shockingly firm grip, shaking it quickly, business-like, before letting go.

Paul suddenly felt _very_ sophisticated.

"Pleasure," he said, a bit too formally.

At that, John snorted, and it started a chorus of laughter from the rest of the group.

Paul cringed _madly,_ and a part of him wanted to turn and walk away, but then John spoke again, his voice still slightly teasing. "Saw you watching us tonight," he said factually as he turned his gaze back to his guitar, desperately trying to fit the spare string into place. "What did you think?"

For some reason, Paul was slightly taken aback by the question. "Oh, I- yeah, you're alright," he said, and regretted it instantly.

" _Alright?_ " John repeated, and Paul wanted to clear up what he meant, wanted to tell John how much of a good time he'd had watching them, having a laugh with Ivan all the while, but instead he shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head, watching cautiously as John stared at Ivan and Ivan chuckled beneath his breath in return.

But John just smirked at Paul – a glowing, powerful smirk that was slightly infectious, but Paul kept his expression as neutral as he could. He just couldn't understand why John was looking ... impressed?

Paul had known this boy not even five minutes, and he was already proving impossible to understand.

"Well, you seem _alright_ yourself, Princess Paulie," he said, and Paul sighed almost inaudibly at the nickname, so John never noticed, but it couldn't have been difficult to notice that it was an agitating comment to make. "You play?" John then inquired, lifting his eyebrows and pinning his gaze on the black of the guitar case peaking over Paul's shoulder.

"A bit," he shrugged again, carelessly, although now there was a confident grin creeping its way onto his delicate features.

Ivan scoffed beside him. "' _A bit',_ he says. Show 'em, 'Cartney."

Paul suddenly felt under pressure, and his cheeks began to burn slightly, indicating the beginning of a blush, but he pushed it aside as much as he could as he looked back to John, and John looked back at him expectantly, smiling almost encouragingly.

"Yeah, show us, Paulie," he said, grinning at the rest of the group, who had remained silent through the whole encounter.

So Paul swiftly removed his guitar from its case, dropping it gently on the floor and pulling the guitar strap around his neck.

"Hang on just a minute, 'ere!" John announced, and Paul stood still, holding the plectrum against the strings patiently. "You're wearing that the wrong way 'round!"

"Leftie," Paul answered nonchalantly, tapping his left hand against the body of the instrument before moving on from the subject. "Requests?"

" _Ooooh,_ " John sang in an intimidating high pitch voice, and the rest of the group laughed along with him, but for some reason, it didn't falter Paul much at all. He just raised one dark, sharp eyebrow, waiting for an answer that never came.

So he started playing, and he _fed_ off the power he suddenly felt from the cocky way he had gone on without an instruction or a request.

His fingers glided across the neck of the guitar smoothly, as his left hand controlled the rhythm of the song with the plectrum; the words came to him without even thinking about it, and he just started to sing, letting the music take control of any trace of unease he may have felt within him, taking away any nerves, and he was doing what he was supposed to be doing – performing.

 _"Well, I got a girl with a record machine, when it comes to rockin' she's a queen..."_ he sang, and he silently thanked the Lord that that was probably the best he had ever sounded singing this song in particular – he wasn't necessarily Eddie Cochran perfect, but for his own set standards, he was secretly impressed by himself.

And apparently, so were the others.

As he began to sing, John's eyes lit up, his features softening in a way that made Paul’s heart pound, and he sat up straighter, his mouth quirking up into half a grin as Paul played on, unable to contain the smirk that crept onto his own lips in response to John's – evidently _positive – r_ eaction.

" _But she lives on the twentieth floor of town - the elevator's broken down. So I walk one, two flight, three flight, four, five, six, seven flight, eight flight more, twelfth floor I'm ready to drag, fifteenth floor and I'm startin' to sag - get to the top, and I'm too tired to rock..._ " he elected to leave the song at that, finishing with one final, harder strum of the strings and leaning back as he finished, staring at the rest of the company, waiting for some sort of inclination of a criticism, or possibly even a compliment – _something._

"Well," John began, a little bit too casually. "We better get back on, lads," he said, leaning his guitar down beside him, having fixed the snapped string. Paul felt slightly offended, if anything, because he had just performed in front of them all (and quite well, if he were to say so himself), and he felt very rejected, _neglected,_ that John had basically ignored him entirely.

Then John looked back to Paul. "We've got an evenin' show to do, you see."

"Ah," Paul said, nodding his head, understanding the dismissal with a slightly gloomy feeling brewing in the pit of his stomach. "'course. I understand."

He was just leaning down to pick up his case, getting ready to place his guitar back inside it when he felt John shift downwards to Paul's level, their faces alarmingly close together. Paul wanted to move away, but he felt that everything with this boy was going to be a challenge of proving yourself for a while, so he held his gaze, not backing down. He didn't say anything, just waited for John to speak, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from staring out John’s features further; suddenly, every single pore that made up John’s face was visible, noticeable, right there in front of Paul, and it dawned upon him that there didn’t seem to be a single flaw on this boy’s face. His nose wasn’t big or small, although it craned forward in a beak-like way, it wasn’t unattractive – if anything, it just made him look mature, as though he was looking down at you with authority, even though he probably wasn’t most of the time; one close look at his warm, brown eyes told you so straight away. The shape of them made them seem sharp and glaring at first, but from the angle Paul was at in that moment, John’s eyelashes curved in a delicate way, highlighting the way his eyes glowed autumn colours in the orange of the setting sun beyond the church windows.

It reminded Paul of _home._

"Come back after, yeah?" John said, bringing Paul’s attention away from John’s face and back to packing away his guitar. The older boy (John, who Paul had been told was 16 – almost 17 – nearly two years older than himself) pressed his thin lips together in a wide, inviting smile. "We're stickin' around for a bit, ain't we, lads?" There was a pause as the other members nodded and smiled, more politely than Paul could have imagined them capable of. "So you can come back, and _we–_ " he indicated towards the others "–can booze up a wee' bit. What'd you say, Paulie?"

Without hesitation, Paul nodded his head quickly, his mind swooning slightly from being within such close proximity to this boy, who was essentially a stranger, and slammed the guitar case closed clumsily before picking it up and slinging it over his back. "Uh – yeah, yeah – that okay with you, Ivan?"

Ivan had his arms folded, looking rather smug with himself for bringing Paul at all, and for impressing the rest of them with his friend. "Aye, of course."

"Smashing," John said, feigning a strong posh accent, so unnatural to his usual swanky tone that Paul had dubbed as _his_ idiolect already. "Well, ta ta, then."

"O-oh, yeah," Paul stuttered, grinning crookedly. "See you."

As Paul and Ivan walked away, Ivan talking about how _'Great it was that Paul actually knew_ all _the words to Twenty Flight Rock',_ Paul heard Rod – or was it Pete? – saying something along the lines of " _rather him ours than anyone else’s,"_ to John, and Paul grinned smugly, feeling more proud of himself than he had done in a while.

***     

Paul stumbled home that night.

Not from alcohol, mind you.

It was mostly from sheer exhaustion.

It was very unlike him, really, to stay out so late; he didn’t drink anything all night other than that cheap lemonade some of the Sisters from the church had got a load of little choir girls to stir up for the fête, so he wasn’t stumbling with intoxication, and he definitely wasn’t thoughtless due to the influence of alcohol when it came to only just returning home at one-in-the-morning, so he didn’t know what to blame, really.

Although a massive part of him wanted to blame that ruddy John Lennon lad.

He hadn’t _done_ anything, though, and that’s why Paul couldn’t bring himself to really get into his head that it was him that had kept him lingering about Woolton all night. Paul had just gotten himself lost, really; lost in this magical night that, to the blind eye, was nothing new or unusual. It was a gathering in a dark church hall after a summer fête, for Christ’s sake. In fact, Paul found himself cringing at himself every time he tried to get his head around what _was_ different about that night, but he would always conclude with the same thing.

It was John.

The way he had gotten so drunk so quickly, yet been able to last the whole night without coiling over in heaves like Paul probably would have ended up doing had he been drinking as much as John did; the way he leaned over Paul’s shoulder, almost possessively, as Paul played a load of thoughtless, doolally tunes on the church piano. Even as he knocked out a go on the organ behind a curtain on the old wooden stage of the hall, John was still there, breathing an alarmingly beery breath down Paul’s neck, sweating ferociously and the both of them beginning to stink of their own body odour as the heat of the many other people in the hall still dancing radiated upwards, onto the stage, finding the two lads and infecting them – that is, if John wasn’t already sweating the outrageous amount of booze he had treated himself to, and Paul wasn’t sweating away his nerves as he felt the intense gaze of the odd boy watching his every move, although Paul could see John vaguely in the darkness, watched him as he chuckled and bobbed his head to whatever meaningless tune Paul thought up; heck, even the way he tried to prove himself musically, Paul was intrigued with. Normally, Paul would roll his eyes and disregard the thoughtless arrogance, but John really _wanted_ to be the best, and that wasn’t very difficult for Paul to understand.

So what Paul McCartney really got himself lost in was the wonderful whirling world of John that seemed to change into a new atmosphere every minute.

But that made absolutely no sense at all to Paul, who was too shattered to really conjure up such in-depth, thoughtful ideas and conclusions from just one night. He might not even see John again, he found himself pondering, but he hoped he did, because Paul knew deep down that he was slightly mesmerised by the whole movement and meaning of Lennon.

He’d also have to find a way to help John out with the guitar a bit; Paul had picked up that a lot of the chords John played on his sunburst acoustic – which only had four strings as it was – were banjo chords, not really guitar chords.

But he’d just have to wait and see, really, and pretend to not be mithered at all if he never even heard of John Lennon again.

At that moment, as he stumbled off the road and onto the concrete pavement on Forthlin Road, Paul had more pressing matters to concern himself with. One being his father, who seemed to still be awake, judging by the light Paul could see seeping through the thin material of the living room curtains of number 20.

“Oh, _shit.”_

***

The next few weeks all went by in a blur.

Nothing changed after the night at the fête. Paul spent the entire following Sunday locked away in the confines of his home at 20 Forthlin Road, while desperately trying to avoid the disapproving gaze of his father and the patronising smirks of his younger brother.

Mike McCartney was only two years younger than his brother, but that gap was enough for Paul to consider him the most childish creature he had ever come across; in all his older-brother-wisdom, everything Mike did Paul deemed as silly and immature, but as a cheeky thirteen-year-old lad from Liverpool, Mike was getting to the stage where he really didn’t care about constantly impressing his older sibling, and he embraced any uprising possibility he could find to get on Paul’s nerves as much as possible, even if it was just grinning at him every time he saw Paul walk into the same room as him on that Sunday, granted Mike had stayed awake just to see his father’s reaction to his brother’s late return home and was aware of the whole situation.

Paul appeared from his bedroom in the morning at around ten o’clock, rubbing his eyes and scratching his belly through his white pyjama shirt as he stretched and shuffled along the landing towards the stairs.

Suddenly, a feeling in Paul’s gut made him flinch and shiver. The similar frightened feeling of the night before returned as he realised that he would eventually have to run into his angry father again and put up with another telling off and the awful mood Paul _knew_ he would be in, as he always would be after one of his sons did something he didn’t approve of.

Paul peered through the living room door, trying to keep himself concealed behind it, so that he could just about scan around the room for his father, but also so that he wouldn’t be noticed and could make a quick escape if need be.

Luckily, old Jim McCartney was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mike sat in their father’s favourite armchair, right beside the tiny television and hidden behind the door.

When Paul’s eyes found his brother, Mike was already staring at him, smirking with a knowing look at his older brother, holding his camera in his hands and quirking an eyebrow at him.

“You take a picture of me now, Mike, I’ll cripple ya’, you twat.” Paul scowled before relaxing, comfortable that their dad was nowhere to be seen and revealing the rest of him as he moved away from his hiding place behind the door and sitting on the arm of the brown sofa nearby, folding his arms over his chest. “Where’s dad?”

Mike didn’t answer, just stared at Paul with that same cocky grin.

Paul was growing inpatient and so he shrugged his shoulders, casually as ever, and leaned towards the little wooden table beside where he was perched, picking out a toffee from the Television Selection box that their dad always seemed to have, and pelted the hard sweet at his brother’s face.

“ _Agh –_ for fuck’s sake, Paul!” Mike screamed, slapping his hand over his eye. “Ye’ got me in the fucking eye, you dolt!”

“’Ey, watch it, Mikey,” Paul started confidently, having regained control over the conversation. “Dad would belt ye’ if he heard you mouthing off to me like that.”

“Hypocrite,” Mike pouted, rubbing his eye ferociously with his hand. “You swear all the time.”

“I’m older,” Paul said haughtily, picking out another toffee and this time unwrapping it and eating it himself – despite the fact that he hadn’t even had breakfast yet. “Where’s dad?” He repeated, and this time, Mike answered.

“Shops,” Mike said, still pouting and clearly put into a shite mood, but his attention was turned towards his camera again now. “Said he wanted to ‘beat the traffic’ or something; think he meant he wanted to skip the queues in the markets, actually. He left about… what, twenty odd minutes ago…?” he smirked again, chuckling. “Don’t worry, you can grab ye’ breaky without the looming fear of him knocking you out, Paulie.”

Paul glared down at his sibling, clenching his jaw in annoyance. “Piss off, Mike. He didn’t knock me out last night.”

“Nah, you’re right, but you didn’t seem too happy when he got yer’ arse with the dishcloth.”

At this, Paul stood up so quickly that Mike visibly flinched and clenched his eyes shut, expecting a dig in the arm, at least. He was surprised, then, when he heard the laughter of his brother float across the room in an almost soft way, and he opened up one eye, peeking out only to find that Paul had left the room.

“If you’re doing yourself a brew, do us o-!”

“No!” Paul yelled instantly as he filled up the kettle and put it on the stove.


	2. Chapter 2

Almost two weeks later and Paul still hadn’t heard anything from the Quarrymen, or, more precisely, John Lennon. He’d tried valiantly hard not to mention it to Ivan, though, because Paul felt an underlying paranoia that the reason they weren’t talking about the band was because John had decided that he didn’t want to see Paul again afterall, and that Paul wasn’t good enough for them. And although Paul told himself that the reason he didn’t want to inquire about it was because he didn’t want to put his friend in the awkward situation of explaining to him, he knew that the real reason was that he didn’t actually want to hear it coming from a reliable source.

He did, however, run into Pete Shotton a few days after the fête, just walking down the road – Pete had begged Paul with much enthusiasm to join the group on the spot, but at the time, Paul didn’t really understand what to say, so he’d shrugged him off with an ‘I’ll think about it.’

Moments after saying it, though, he worried that he’d never hear from them again, and that he’d given the entirely wrong answer.

This is why Paul was completely taken aback when Ivan caught up to him in the jostle of people just about to get onto the bus home on the last day of the school year.

The sun was beaming down over Liverpool with such unexpected summer heat that Paul felt that he could collapse at any moment. The bus was fifteen minutes late, so the crowd around the bus stop just grew and grew with more and more students, meaning that everybody was forced to squeeze together onto the small pavement, adding to the uncomfortable warmth of Paul, as well as everyone else, although a lot of the boys had pinned onto some of the girls from the opposite site – with the bus being late, the girls of the Liverpool Institute were still sticking around waiting, as their bus would usually be there earlier for them to avoid any cross-gender conflict. The girls seemed shy, an easy pull, and Paul would have been onto them straight away – what, with his charm – if he hadn’t been sweating so profusely.

After a long wait, the bus pulled up beside them, and Paul would have been the first onto it, had a firm hand not gripped his shoulder, holding him back.

“Hey, ‘Cartney,” the voice said and, of course, it belonged to Ivan.

“Allo, Ivan,” Paul replied quietly, hopping onto the bus and grabbing a seat before a gangly little first year could get to it. On a regular day, Paul would have felt guilty at his actions, but he couldn’t even think about anybody else right then; there was no way he could stay stood up on that bus in that heat.

Ivan plopped down next to him, grinning as he shook off his blazer and rolled his jumper’s sleeves up his arms.

Paul stared at him quizzically with one raised eyebrow and a confused frown on his face.

“Why’re you in such a good mood, eh?”

“No school for a whole month, Paul!” Ivan yelled excitedly, and Paul realised that he was just as relieved as Ivan about the time off school, but he couldn’t muster the energy to act it, like Ivan could.

“Hmm,” Paul hummed, nodding his head once before leaning it on the window of the vehicle. He had expected it to be cool, to bring him some sort of relief from the overwhelming heat, but the glass was just as warm as Paul felt, and he sighed in defeat, slumping further down in his seat.

“ _And,”_ Ivan pressed, nudging Paul with his elbow to get his attention. Paul didn’t look up. “The Quarrymen are having a get together tonight, down at Shotton’s place; they’ve asked me to fill in on bass – Len’s bailed again. John wanted to know if you wanted to pop down, too?”

Now _that_ got Paul’s attention.

“Jesus – yeah, yeah, alright,” He replied, a wide grin taking over his face as he sat up straight, pushing aside his bad mood. In fact, the bad mood was almost entirely distinguished by the glee the news brought him.

 _Fucking finally,_ Paul found himself thinking. _Thought I’d never see that John fella’ again._

There it was again – just John. Not the band – all of Paul’s thoughts always turned back to _John._  

“What bus do I take?” he made sure to ask before he forgot to make sure he actually knew where he was going.

“Be easier if I came and grabbed you and we just went on from there, mate,” Ivan replied, smiling warmly and lazily.  “That okay with you? Also, that way we could grab a bite to eat on the way there from a chippy or somethin’ if I come for ye’ at around five-ish?”

Paul nodded quickly, still grinning madly as the bus stopped at his stop, not far down the road from Forthlin.

“Right, I’m off here, Ivan,” Paul announced, standing and manoeuvring his way around his friend in order to get out of the seat he was in. “I’ll see you later, yeah? Don’t you go standin’ me up, now, lad,” Paul smirked, pointing at him.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ‘Cartney,” Ivan laughed, and with that, Paul hopped off the bus in a _far_ better mood than the one he was in when he first got on.

***

Paul spent the next two hours or so getting ready for the evening’s events; that included having a very thorough wash – knowing full well that he completely reeked of school and sweat – and trying to make his hair look as perfect as he possibly could, in a similar style to what John had attempted (and, as far as Paul was concerned _, succeeded_ ) to manufacture his hair into at the fête, however Paul never felt completely satisfied by his many attempts at a suave hair do that day, so he just combed it over to one side, leaving one strand to fall a little more onto his forehead than the rest of his dark head of hair.

He felt a simple white shirt and some jeans would do nicely, and nicely they did. Paul felt he looked _decent,_ at least, with his choices, as he unbuttoned a few of the top buttons on his shirt and tucked the white fabric lazily into his dark jeans.

By the time Paul was putting on his favourite black jacket, Jim McCartney emerged from the living room, staring at his eldest son as he walked down the stairs slowly, his attention mostly on one single button on his sleeve.

“Where are you off to then, eh?”

His father’s voice made Paul jump slightly, and for a moment he thought he was going to fall face first down the steps and into his dad, but he gripped the banister before it could happen, letting out a loud and heavy sigh.

“Christ, dad – ye’ scared the life out of me,” Paul said, hand over his chest as he stared at his dad wide eyed, and for a moment Jim recognised him as the little lad who had awed over a piano at such a young age, who had idolised his father for teaching him how to play it.

The two stared at each other for a long moment, and Paul thought, _Shit. He’s not going to let me go – it’s the drainies. He’s spotted the dranies. Fuck._

Until Jim cracked up laughing, confusing Paul to no ends.

“Your mate’s in the living room, son,” he laughed, evidently proud of himself for frightening his son and Paul knew, then, with a heart-warming feeling, that his father was only trying to have a laugh with him. Paul nodded his head, grinning like a school-boy, and started hopping down the stairs quickly as Jim returned to the living room, and taking the elder McCartney’s place in the small hallway, Ivan appeared.

“Ready?” Ivan asked, dressed in a brown jacket and slightly lighter jeans than Paul’s, arms folded tightly over his chest. “Where’s your guitar?”

“Parlour,” Paul answered, grinning and zooming into the living room, heading towards the corner of the room where the piano was kept, with his guitar, already in its black case, leaning against it, all tuned and ready to go. Paul grabbed his guitar by the strap and put it over his shoulder, spinning it around so it lay on his back, carrying it like a back-pack. He walked out of the room with a spring in his step, heading towards Ivan and smiling at his dad. “I’ll see you later, dad,” Paul said, nodding his head and walking past without a glance back.

“Ey, don’t you be staying out late, lad!” Jim yelled, but Paul missed it, as he was already heading out of the gate at the front of the garden and down the street with Ivan.

***

Paul was nervous, and there was no denying it.

He’d passed up on the chippy with Ivan, tried not to watch as his mate scoffed down a whole portion of greasy chips in less than four minutes. He felt that if he even thought too much about eating food for himself he might regurgitate everything he’d eaten in the prior twenty-four hours.

Paul found himself hoping that Pete Shotton’s house was further away than just ‘somewhere in Woolton’; he wanted to walk forever, walk away the nerves entirely, but simultaneously, he desperately needed to sit down and relax. The guitar on his back was starting to weigh down a bit.

“This house here,” Ivan stated, pointing towards a house two blocks away from where the two of them were walking, down a long street.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

How was Paul even going to talk to anybody? This wasn’t a party; there were no birds there he could swing towards with his charm and flirting, or anybody he really knew other than Ivan. It dawned upon him that the only time he’d spent time with John was with the older lad pissed out of his face, so Paul panicked that he may not even be able to talk to John properly.

 _Just have to rely on the music,_ Paul thought to himself in a desperate attempt to calm himself down before they knocked on the door of the house.

For a strained moment of tension, Paul half expected John to open the door, and he felt his palms sweat in the heat of the evening’s summer sunshine. He’d never felt so nervous about some random bloke before, but he thought nothing of it, shrugging it off as just him wanting to prove himself musically to the band, worried about his personal image.

Instead, though, a little blonde lady appeared in the hallway, flowery apron on and a dishcloth in her hand. At first glance, she looked immensely stern; squinting up at the taller teenagers with a judgmental glare in her eyes. However, upon recognising Ivan, her piercing gaze softened considerably, and Paul eased up a lot at the welcoming smile she presented his friend with.

“Hullo, Mrs Shotton,” Ivan said quietly, smiling down at the woman with such politeness that Paul wouldn’t have expected from his mate, who was often a joker.

“Hello, Ivan, love,” she replied, turning her gaze onto Paul now. “And who’s this? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No, ma’am,” Ivan said, chuckling. “This is Paul – reckon he’s gonna’ be getting a place in the group soon.”

“Ooh, is that so, eh?” She inquired, and Paul shrugged his shoulders earnestly, smiling sheepishly at the ground for a moment, before realising how rude he must have seemed in not answering the woman.

“Depends if they like me or not, miss,” Paul said, looking up from the ground now.

“Well, you two better come in then,” she announced, moving away so that Paul and Ivan could enter. “They’re out in the old bomb shelter in the back garden. Can’t miss ‘em.”

“Ta, Mrs Shotton,” Paul made sure to say before he walked out of the back door and into the rather large back garden.

Ivan led the way, waltzing toward the tin building at the back of the garden before doing a funny little knock on the metal door, waving Paul over with an encouraging grin.

To Paul’s dismay – or was it delight? – it was John who flung open the door, and _God,_ he looked different. His hair was very nearly the same, although it was a lot neater than it had been at the fête. He had a white t-shirt on, tucked into his tight jeans so far down that it made the shirt look _incredibly_ tight, highlighting every muscle and curve that made up his body.

Paul was caught in a hypnotic state, staring out John’s features, trying to figure out how he was able to look so different, and yet still the exact same. Same autumn brown eyes; the same perfect maple hair; the same thin, shiny lips.

When did Paul start staring at his lips, anyway?

“Y’alright there, son?”

A snarky voice awoke him from his trance, and he blinked once, opening his eyes wide and nodding his head as John stared at him, waiting for him to enter the little shelter and holding the door open for him as he examined Paul so intently that Paul felt the stream of John’s sight almost burning into his skin.

“Yeah, yeah, just…” Paul pondered over what to say next, trying to make some sort of quick conversation to avoid an awkward silence, or at least to prevent John thinking him to be a complete nutter. “Are you sure we’ll all fit in there?”

John snorted, taking his eyes off Paul and glancing behind him. “I reckon we can squeeze you in, luv,” John chuckled, his voice strangely soft and charming for a brief moment, before he spoke again, rough and scouse and undeniably strong. “c’mon, now, this door’s crampin’ me’ arm up.”

“Right, sorry,” Paul mumbled, ducking his head as he stepped into the little scruffily made room. Where two sets of bunk-beds probably should have been, in their place there was one dirty, damp looking sofa and opposite it, a line of three of the other band-members; Ivan, Rod and Colin sat cross legged on the cold ground, whilst Pete and Eric lounged on the sofa. Paul felt very out of place all of a sudden; he was possibly the youngest of the company, along with Ivan, and he felt outnumbered for a moment, almost intimidated.

However, the room welcomed him openly with smiles as chants of ‘y’alright, Paul?’ seemed to fire out of random corners of the room.

Paul had been very wrong to be so nervous, he soon found.

Ivan waved Paul to sit beside him on the floor and he stepped carefully around the legs of the other two members before taking his place next to his friend.

John remained stood up, though, facing the rest of the boys with his head held high, feigning a rather pompous expression. “Ladies and lads, boys and chaps,” he started, voice strong and posh and fake, and Paul was the only one who chuckled audibly, although it earned a smirk from John as he raised an appreciative eyebrow towards the newbie. “We are gathered here today, first and foremost, to have a fuckin’ good jam. Second, to introduce Liverpool’s very own – Paul McCharmly!”

The room roared with clapping and joking chants of ‘woooo!’ from Pete and Ivan, mostly, and those shouts, as well as the deliberate mispronunciation of his name made Paul laugh loudly and tilt his head backwards – although his eyes never completely left the dark, looming figure of John.

“Alright – alright, ye’ pansies! He isn’t in the bleedin’ group yet!” John pressed on, hushing the group down without hassle, dropping his act for a moment and rolling his eyes with fake exasperation. Paul’s giggling quietened down, too, and he was actually very much enjoying the little role-play the group had going on for his sake. “Anyroad,” John continued. “Welcome, Paul, to this fine, fine gathering, in spunky ‘ere’s grotty cave; now, you’ve already impressed us at the fête, so I don’t reckon there’s much pressure on ya’, and Ivan reckons you’re a good lad as it is. Not like we have much choice to let ya in, mind, now that Rodders is skippin’ out on us, the selfish bastard.”

“’ey, now, Lennon – you know that ain’t my fau-”

“ _Moving on,_ ” John proceeded, deliberately talking louder than he had started off, and _wow_ , Paul was in literal awe of the control John had over every little thing that happened within the group. His gaze, then, returned to Paul, taking the younger boy off guard for a moment, and he stiffened, waiting to be addressed to, and he found himself wondering when he had surrendered himself to the reign of the stranger.

 _We’ll give him somethin’ to compete with,_ he found himself thinking, and with that, he knew he was determined to be John Lennon’s equal, however long it took him.

“You’re all probably thinking we should inform our dear old Walley about this initiation, but, as ever, I’m takin’ matters into me’ own hands, 'cause he's late, as ever, swannin' off with his fucking golf group or whatever, so, Paul, if yer’ a good lad, you’re sticking around for as long as we need ye’, alright?”

Paul chuckled and then put on a serious mask, staring directly at John – a power battle using only eyes. “Aye – that is, if you’s lot can prove to me that you’re worth me sticking around – I am a very busy man, you know.”

Paul expected a snarky comeback from John, but instead, he received a cheeky looking smirk – showing him to be a lot younger than what he clearly was – an impressed glint of light flashing in the brown of his eye, and a satisfied feeling of winning a battle.

_I reckon the real battle’s just beginning._

The brief thought scuffled across Paul’s mind in a wisp, and he didn’t really know where it came from, or what it meant, but it made him bubble with warm anticipation for whatever John Lennon had in mind for him.

***

“Right, I’m off for a cig,” John stated, placing his guitar down after a good hour and a half of straight rehearsing. The room had started to get very hot, very clammy, and Paul was quick to hop up out of his place on the floor, placing his guitar carefully beside John’s with a mutter of ‘me too, lads’.

Once outside, Paul took a large gulp of fresh, heavenly air. He closed his eyes, running a hand through the dark hair that he had earlier tried to style, but it was well and truly ruined now, if it wasn’t already before.

Beside him, he heard a chuckle escape from John, and he jumped, forgetting for a moment that he was with anyone other than himself.

“Dead grotty in there, ain’t it?”

“O-oh, aye,” Paul agreed, nodding his head and smiling earnestly. “Well, it’s not _that_ bad – in terms of rehearsing, though, could be a bit bigger, don’t you reckon?”

The easiest way to escape lack of conversation, Paul decided, was to talk about something he understood.

John laughed openly, loudly (although Paul didn’t entirely understand why, couldn’t figure out what was so funny) before taking a drag of his smoke and folding an arm over his torso as he eyed Paul funnily, like he was trying to see _into_ him rather than just look _at_ him. By this point, John’s hair was scruffy and sticking in funny directions, and Paul would describe it as ‘bed hair’, but he couldn’t seem to put together that image of John with _actual_ bed hair without feeling an overwhelming need to lick his lips.

After a long moment of silence, in which Paul had distracted himself by lighting his own cigarette and taking his first lungful of smoke, John started to step closer to Paul, and he couldn’t understand why, so he stared at the older – still slightly taller – lad with a crease in between his eyebrows, eyeing him up and down as he tried to figure out what John was moving forward to do.

Paul couldn’t trust himself to come up with a reasonable conclusion, so he just spoke instead.

“Uh … y’alright, John?” He asked, a twinge of hesitation in his tone, but it worked enough for John to stop moving in slow, gradual steps towards Paul and stand still at a relatively close distance – close enough that Paul could feel the heat pouring off his body, but not close enough to touch him.

_Not close enough to touch him? When did that become a bad thing?_

John didn’t speak. He stared right into Paul’s eyes, and Paul started to panic, not understanding the situation or knowing how to react.

Eventually, though, John broke the contact with a frustrated groan, leaving Paul even more confused than he already was to start off with.

“Right, m’ not being funny or anything, Macca, but I can’t see a fucking thing at the moment; I’ve hardly an idea of what the bleedin’ Christ you even look like, son,” John growled, reaching into his back trouser pocket and pulling out a pair of thick black rimmed spectacles before resting them on his nose, whilst Paul remained grinning at the use of a nickname: ‘ _Macca.’_

Paul used to find glasses a slightly odd, unattractive feature, but _fuck,_ he couldn’t complain when John put them on. They just magnified his brown irises, making them glow more, inviting Paul in with the feeling of home and warmth and love.

_Shit, ‘love’? Paul, you sound more queer than an elephant with pink and purple wings._

Paul eased up and tried to speed up the process of smoking out his cigarette, watching as John blinked and adjusted to the clearer images of Pete’s back garden and, more importantly, Paul.

“That’s better,” he said, grinning a stupid, crooked grin and leaning a little closer towards Paul – not noticeable enough for an onlooker to see, but noticeable enough that the younger musician felt his arm twitch slightly as goose bumps appeared on his pale skin, despite the lasting heat of the day, and he felt suddenly drawn into John’s touch, but obviously, Paul forced himself to believe that it was a trick of the wind that caused him to shiver, however hot he was actually starting to feel beneath his shirt.

“Ey, you’re a pretty one, aren’t ya?” John said in a mocking voice, sounding pleasantly surprised, and Paul was simply _forced_ to smirk, to go along with the mocking, so he batted his long, dark eyelashes flirtatiously and brought a hand up towards his hair, pushing one strand out of the way before looking back at John, trying to look as feminine and positively ridiculous as he could.

“Why, John, you’re making me blush, you silly old thing!” he giggled, moving away from John with a curt, ballet-like hop to the side, landing on one leg and flicking his other outwards in a pretty kick.

The two realised what they were doing, and then stared at each other in dead silence.

It was John who broke it first with a loud snort followed by a bellow of amplified laughter, coiling forward and holding his belly as he did so. Paul watched, first; watched as John’s nose crinkled up when his cheek-splitting smile broke out over his face, like a beautiful infection; watched as his eyes clenched closed, and it was more the contagious effect of John’s laughter that cracked open Paul’s bomb of giggles, and he, too, was coiling forward, dropping his cig into the grass without a second thought.

“ _Cor_ , Lennon,” Paul gasped as he gripped John’s shoulder, only realising that he had done so after a moment of accidental lingering, cherishing the brief feeling of warmth spreading over his hand and down his arm.

“Please, _please,_ ” John managed as he stood himself up straight, broad shouldered and strong. “Call me ‘babe’ and keep the key to my warm, loving heart, yeah, sweet pea?”

That only set them off again, giggling like school-boys. Well, they _were_ school-boys, and that was the magnificence of it.

They were school-boys who had only ever met _twice,_ and were already laughing in unison like they were lifelong partners.

***

Back inside the shelter, the Quarrymen sat around in a circle, watching as Nigel Walley, who had very formally introduced himself to Paul as the manager of the band (Paul had shook hands with him firmly, as he had done with John, only Nigel went on to Paul like he was raised in Buckingham Palace, and Paul struggled to contain his laughter as John sat beside him, snorting every time Nigel said something all new and even more pompous sounding), spoke on and on about the group’s progress, although Paul doubted he really knew much about music itself.

“Okay, so, uh…” Nigel paused for a moment, having talked the boys to death, and was now faltering as he tried to think of what else to say. John – who had decided to sit on the floor, _very_ close to Paul, their arms permanently brushing against each other with every movement caused by every breath – nudged Paul with a smirk, eyeing Nigel and chuckling beneath his breath, and Paul tried his hardest not to laugh along with John, however much he wanted to, because he thought it wouldn’t make a very good impression if he sat there giggling away at everything their manager said on his first day with them. “Oh, _that’s it,”_ Nigel chirped, jumping slightly as the bolt of a thought hit him. “You all remember Alan Sytner, don’t you, lads? Goes to my golf club–” _as if it wasn’t difficult enough to stay quiet without the mention of a ruddy golf club,_ Paul thought, as he looked at John again with a knowing grin, and found a rush of heat roll over his body when he turned to find John was already staring at him. “–well, he’s the owner of the Cavern – y’know, that club that opened up in January of this year, down Mathew Street – well, anyway, I’ve managed to get you lot a show down there!”

The lads, gathered in the circle around the manager, all cheered triumphantly, and Nigel laughed along with them for the first time all night, clearly pleased that he had managed to make them all happy because of his work, and Paul watched him now with a content smile on his lips, loving how easy it was to get used to these boys.

“Alright, okay,” Nigel continued, clearing his throat to shut everybody up. “Okay. It’ll be on the evening of the 7th of August, and–”

“Aw, _fuck!_ ”

The whole room seemed taken aback with surprise by the loud groan coming from Paul, and for a moment, Paul was surprised himself at the sound, because he could have sworn that he had only thought it, not said it aloud, so he stared at Nigel with wide eyes, before realising that Nigel was only the same age as John and so couldn’t really be that appalled at Paul for interrupting.

“Problem, Paul?”

Paul cleared his throat awkwardly, shifting about as he sat himself up straight against the shelter’s metal walls. “Yeah, uh, sorry – just, I’m not around in that time of August.”

“You’re havin’ a fucking laugh, right?” John almost yelled down Paul’s ear, causing Paul to jump and spin his head around to look at John, whose face was incredibly close to his by this point. Paul found that that didn’t bother him at all – he was, however, shocked that the look that John bore on his flawless face was not one of anger or annoyance, but a more disheartened, slightly _sad,_ stare.

“No – dead serious,” Paul finally managed, forcing his gaze away from the older lad with much effort, although he could still feel John’s powerful gaze piercing the back of his head. He looked, now, back at Nigel, who was waiting patiently for an explanation. “Me’ dad’s only gone and got me and me’ brother into some Scout Camp shite for a few days. Goin’ to Butlins or somethin’ afterwards, too – just, that’s one of the days we’re away for. ‘M sorry, lads.”

“Well fuck – guess that means our Rod’s gonna be stickin’ about for a bit longer now then, in’t he?” John joked, an indirect reassurance to Paul that he wasn’t going to be holding grudges against him for not being able to make it.

“Don’t sound so down, Lennon,” Rod spoke, smirking and staring upwards, his dark eyes demon-like in the barely lit room. “What are ya’ without a banjo? You’ll miss me when I’m gone, you will.”

“I’ll miss ya’ mother more, son.”

At this, Rod laughed a loud, single syllabled, sarcastic snort, chucking a crumpled up piece of paper at John, getting him right on the top of his messy, slightly curled up hair. Paul was surprised John had managed to get away with making a comment like that, but it was just another thing that Paul was picking up on as the new one – John often, if not _always,_ got his way with things.

People just accepted John as he was.

And Paul didn’t find that so bad at all.

***

“How you gettin’ home then, Macca?”

Paul and Ivan had cleared off from Pete’s house at around seven ‘o clock in the evening, walking back up the same street they had walked down to get there, only now they  walked in silence, shattered by the night’s constant laughing and rehearsing and occasional disagreeing.

So when the low, swanky voice belonging to John Lennon blew up out of nowhere, like the first clash of thunder in a storm, Paul, for a moment, was convinced he was hearing things, but he was proven otherwise as Ivan spun around too, having heard the same thing.

Of course, the two spun around to find a smoking John, clad in his newest black jacket and a sunburst guitar on his back, stood still with one hand in his jean’s tight pocket.

The sight of John in the setting light of the summer sun made Paul ponder for an everlasting second what word would be the best to describe him in that moment – ‘ _beautiful_ ’ sounded a little too queer; ‘ _magnificent’_ seemed too bold for Paul to settle for, and so he went for the next best thing his mind could muster – _picturesque._

It still wasn’t sufficient enough to describe him – didn’t do him justice at all.

Paul stumbled slightly with the twinge of excitement he suddenly felt upon seeing John, granted he had previously come to terms with the understanding that he probably wouldn’t see him again for the rest of the week as the group dispersed in different directions from Pete’s house. He grinned lopsidedly, and apparently, it caused the side of John’s mouth to lift up into a half-smile which, for some inexplicable reason, made Paul’s insides melt.

He’d practically forgotten about Ivan entirely before his friend spoke.

“Was gonna’ walk him,” Ivan declared, saving Paul from answering.

“What, _w_ a _lk?!_ All the way from _here_? Why aren’t ye’s getting the bus, Ivan? The two of you will end up crippled by the time you reach your neck a’ the woods.”

“There is no bus from here to closer to Paul’s parts, though, is there?” Ivan asked, looking genuinely confused. “ _Is_ there?”

“Depends – hey, Macca, where is it you live?”

Paul was taken aback by being directed to, _again,_ with the nickname ‘ _Macca_ ’, but it still made him want to giggle and glow with warmth and welcoming – it made him feel accepted by the group – accepted by _John._

“Uh… Forthlin Road… Allerton sort of area,” Paul answered, hesitantly, not really knowing how to describe to John whereabouts it was he lived. “Oh – about twenty minutes away from Penny Lane.”

“ _Psh –_ Ivan, you dyke, there’s a fuck ton of buses going to and from Penny Lane every fuckin’ minute of the day!” John bellowed, rolling his eyes dramatically at Ivan’s obvious error.

After about ten minutes of pointless bickering between John and Ivan – Paul stuck watching like an outsider all the while – he felt it was about time to get it sorted by himself, because clearly, John wasn’t willing to lose without his say being accounted for, and Ivan was persistent on walking all the way.

To be honest, Paul much preferred the idea of at least _looking_ for a bus to his house.

Of course, it had absolutely _nothing_ to do with spending more time with John.

“Right, Ivan,” Paul suddenly declared, stepping up taller beside John, taking Ivan off guard for a reason Paul couldn’t figure out on the spot. “I’m gonna’ have a look around for a bus stop or a bus map or somethin’ with John, yeah? Come with if you want to, but if you still fancy walking, I’ll just see you over the week, ‘kay?”

Ivan stuttered for a moment, trying to argue further, but Paul just shrugged casually.

“Right, see you then, Ivan,” Paul said, forcing a smile to his clearly floundered friend before turning to walk the other way with John – he _almost_ missed the satisfied, cheeky smirk that John now wore on his lips.

_Almost._

***

“Look, John, I don’t think you really have any idea where we’re headin’.”

They’d been walking for over half an hour, and the sun was literally at its last few moments in the sky. John and Paul had strolled mindlessly into the middle of nowhere, and Paul realised that he’d have to start getting off home soon, _really soon_ , because he was fucking shattered, and if he stayed away for much longer, Jim would have him for dinner.

John sighed in defeat – he’d put up a valiant fight, trying to convince Paul that he really did know where he was going.

“You caught me, oh, wise one,” he sang, shaking his head at the ground. Paul chuckled at the completely unnecessary use of sarcasm. “But there’ll be a bus stop lingering around – we’re coming up to one now, see. A metal roofed one, look.”

“…John, that’s a bin.”

“No, that’s a bus stop.”

“John… that’s a bin.”

“That’s too fuckin’ big to be a bin, Paul.”

“John, it’s a big metal one, you dolt. Look, it’s got piles of wood inside it; ye’ can see them peeking out of the top!”

John squinted out into the street, and the closer they got to the object, the wider John’s eyes got with gradual realisation. “Oh.”

At this, Paul found his mouth dropping open in shock. “Christ, you’re _that_ blind?”

John chuckled quietly beneath his breath, shrugging. “Sight of a fuckin’ eighty year old. I’ll be in a care home soon, just you watch, Macca.”

Paul smiled softly rather than laughing at the joking that seemed to come thoughtlessly with John – even the most perfect of people turned out to have some sort of imperfection, although ‘imperfection’ wouldn’t be the right word at all. It didn’t make John any less wonderful, or any less interesting.

In terms of intrigue, it only seemed to make him _more_ interesting to Paul.

“Right, there, look – bus stop.” Paul announced, pointing to a tall pole at the side of a random road. Paul noticed that John looked slightly disheartened that it had turned out to be Paul rather than himself to find some place to get a lift at, and Paul chuckled quietly to himself. “Sorry for stealin’ ya’ spotlight, Johnny.”

John looked up, scaring Paul with how genuinely angry he looked – but it seemed to be, again, a misconception of Paul’s. John was actually nearing more towards surprised than downright mad. “What makes you say that?” He snapped defensively.

Paul faltered, stuttering with wide eyes as he tried to figure out what John wanted to hear. “I- I, uh…” Paul blinked multiple times, until he understood.

_Oh._

“God – John, did you think I was talking about the music?”

The two of them had reached the tall metal post that signified a bus stop, and Paul leaned against the cool object, trying to shift his guitar more to the side so that it was his back rather than the instrument leaning against it. As he relaxed against the support of the stop, Paul got the chance to look at John again; he looked at the floor, his jaw clenched as though he wanted to scream and shout and kick and throw an almighty tantrum, but his eyes – those eyes that so much reminded Paul of the soft flames caused by a small wooden fire, burning and glowing and hypnotising – they were sad, or something alike. But they weren’t really looking at the floor, they were looking right past it – _through_ it – like John himself was trying to find a conclusion, hidden deep in the Earth’s soils rather than in his own head.

“John?”

He looked up, to Paul’s relief, and shrugged, burying his hands deeper into his trouser pockets.

“Yeah.”

“What, you’re worried I’m…” Paul paused before he could go on, furrowing his brow as he considered his next words carefully. “ _Better_ than you?”

Paul was shocked; genuinely _in shock_ that John had so openly admitted to his feelings. Paul hadn’t known him long, admittedly, but from what he’d witnessed of him already, almost opening up to anxious feelings didn’t seem his way at all. He was far too rock n’ roll – far too much of a teddy-boy for that stuff.

Underlying the shock, Paul was secretly touched. But he couldn’t shake off the look of sheer disbelief ridden all over his face – one dark eyebrow raised quizzically, his top lip raised in one corner, as though he was looking at John with judgment rather than confusion and surprise.

Eventually, John snorted and smiled softly, looking back down at the floor and flicking a bit of random dirt onto the road. “Yer’ face says it all, Macca,” John said then, and Paul feared that he had done something wrong, but the vague cheeky, joking tone in John’s voice reassured him otherwise, and he relaxed again, folding his arms over his chest and grinning. “You could never match up to my high standards.” John looked up at him, and their eyes locked for a precious moment; John’s softness was still there, and it made him look so _genuine,_ like Paul was looking into his soul, his very grace, rather than looking at a young man who came across as a ‘be important or die trying to be’ type – Paul only just glanced at the cheeky, humorous smirk over John’s lips before he got himself lost in the flames of his warm, brown eyes.

After a few seconds of cherished silence, Paul laughed softly, nodding his head in agreement rather than defeat and looked off into the road, distracting himself from the inexplicable thoughts that had started to plague his mind, and not for the first time.

 _Fuck._ He’d have to face his real thoughts, his _real_ feelings, one day. _I’ll avoid them as far as I can, though. Probably just a faze._

“Tell me who you are, Paul.”

Paul pulled a face he was sure looked ridiculous – scrunched up and questioning. “I’m Paul McCartney.”

“That’s not what I meant, ye’ fuckin’ nob,” John spat, his voice sounding so literally angry, but his face and overall posture saying differently. “I mean, I don’t know who you are. Seriously, no idea; you’ve just sprung out of nowhere, son.”

“Same to you,” Paul shrugged, and John stared at him impatiently; Paul tried to stare back with the same blankness, but John’s judgmental gaze cracked him. He rolled his eyes cockily, his whole head moving with them. “Well, what d’you want to know?”

“Everything – yer’ one of _my_ lads now!” John yelled enthusiastically as he clapped one large, firm hand onto Paul’s shoulder. “Tell us a story, Macca – tell us _who_ you are.”

“…do you write poetry?”

“Fuck off.”

“No, I’m serious,” Paul smiled, standing up a little straighter, happy to change the subject, but also seriously interested. “You’ve got the mouth of one – minus the ‘fuckin’ this and ‘fuckin’ that, I suppose – but you speak with wisdom, mate,” he paused. “Well, sometimes. Like just now…” Paul grinned, and John stared back at him blankly, waiting for Paul to get to the point, and so Paul obliged. “You ever… have you ever written a song?”

There was a long, wasted moment before John spoke again.

“Uh… no, no. Not songs.” John paused, his jaw clenching again as he clearly pondered cautiously over his next choice of words. “But you’re right. I write a bit of… ‘poetry.’”

“I knew it.” Paul grinned widely, teeth showing, looking proud and tall and completely full of himself. John glared at him.

“Piss off, Princess.”

Paul’s first reaction was to scowl, to grind his teeth in annoyance at the teasing nickname, so intimidating and verging offensive in comparison to the nice, friendly ‘Macca’. But the look of John grinning cheekily as he got the reaction he desired from Paul just eased Paul up, and he relaxed his jaw, starting to laugh, setting off a chain reaction between the two of them.

Then the red bus rolled up beside them, and Paul was the first to shut up, looking at the vehicle, visibly _gutted_ that the moment had to end.

And then John hopped onto the vehicle first.

Paul didn’t follow straight away, just stared blindly after the older lad – _why the fuck am I always so confused at everything he does, for Christ’s sake? There’s a new fuckin’ mystery around every corner._

“Ye’ comin’, then? Old codger says his shift is nearly over; says if we don’t make it to Penny Lane soon then he’s ditchin’ us by the road. We’re racin’ against time, here; come on!”

“Yeah… yeah, I’m comin’.” Paul chuckled quietly, smiling at himself.

_John didn’t want to leave him, either._

“So, Paul,” John said, leaning – suave as ever – against the metal pole as his only support as the bus shook and took off, and Paul sat down sideways on a seat, craning his neck up at John with a cheesy smile plastered on his face permanently, looking like a little boy stuck in a nursery classroom, intrigued by story time. “Who is it you are, again?”

This time, Paul just smiled.

“It’s a mystery.”

***

The sky was _that_ colour – that dark blue colour that resembles the dark, frightening part of the ocean, the far out part that marks the beginning of an unearthly world hidden beneath the waves. The sun is down, as far as the eye can see, but the sky isn’t quite settling into its pitch black state yet; it’s on the border of light and dark, of night and day – the inbetween.

The air was warm, though, and to Paul, it seemed more like the start of the night, the start of a whole new movement, rather than the end of another day.

As the two young musicians hopped off the red bus onto Penny Lane, the shops were still lit up – the dingy flats on top of them were lit up, too. Warm, orange colours, reflecting off either side of the street, and it made the street glow in contrast with the opposing blue of the sky.

John and Paul walked close together, the arms of Paul’s jacket rubbing against John’s, and they were silent, simply strolling contently. Paul didn’t know where John was going to go afterwards, though; whether he was going to kip at Paul’s or something (although a part of him – a slightly _wrong_ part of him, as far as he was concerned, wasn’t entirely sure he wanted that), or if he was going to head off back to Woolton a little later on.

“Fancy some chips?”

Without realising it, Paul had walked off ahead of John, and he was shocked when the voice came from behind him rather than beside him.

At the mention of food, though, Paul realised he was fucking _starving,_ having elected to avoid eating earlier in the day _._

“I haven’t got any money on me.”

“I’ll pay,” John shrugged casually. Paul didn’t argue.

The chips were ordered and paid for in little under five minutes and as they continued walking, John holding the opened paper sporting an extra-large portion of greasy chips, the two of them literally scoffed the lot down like scavengers.

Paul, however, stopped as he noticed there were only a few chips remaining, deciding to leave them for John, more because he was starting to really fill up again rather than an act of kindness, but Paul hoped John would see it that way anyway.

Instead, the older boy stared at him like he had something unattractive on his face.

“Something wrong with those?” He asked, eyebrow raised as he glanced between the remaining chips and Paul.

“No,” Paul said quickly. “No – I just-”

“Well, ye’ can get ‘em ‘et then, you ungrateful git.”

Paul chuckled, kicking the floor with the tip of his shoes before looking up at John and playfully growling, “Make me, Lennon.”

Paul wasn’t entirely expecting it as John shrugged and, fast as lightening, shoved him back into an alleyway they had been walking past, conveniently enough for John, who pinned the slightly smaller boy up against the brick of the alley wall by pressing one strong arm down on his chest.

Paul struggled against the force of John, and his attempts of escape only consisted of him wriggling about under John’s hold, giggling manically as he shuffled in every direction, although the hold over him made it almost impossible to move at all.

John used his free hand to grab a few of the remaining chips and he brought them up to Paul’s mouth, and Paul shook his head crazily, muttering urgent chants of, “No – John, John, stop, stop, stop it, Johnny – stop!” through giggles as John laughed with him. Paul’s speaking only made it easier for John to force a few chips inbetween Paul’s lips, and when he did so, he relaxed his hold slightly. Paul, however, was laughing too much to even contemplate swallowing the chips, and he spat them out onto the floor, still laughing madly as he looked up to John.

“Aw, for Christ’s sake, Paul – what a waste!”

“You eat them, then!”

“Oh, well you _would_ want me down on me’ knees, wouldn’t you, you filthy tart!”

“’Ey now, don’t you be gettin’ cheeky!”

If John replied, Paul didn’t hear it, because all that echoed through the almost completely black alley now was Paul’s howling laughter, the energy he had created and wasted on trying desperately to get out of John’s grasp being released through laughter, and, of course, it set John off, too.

It seemed to Paul that what the two of them really did best together was make the other laugh, and he was completely ‘okay’ with that, as an understatement.

It lasted longer than necessary, the uncontrollable laughter, and it was John who was able to calm himself down first, a few seconds before Paul could.

When Paul looked up again, ending his stream of laughter with a loud sigh breathed through a wide smile, John was stood there with one hand leaning on the wall that Paul was still leaning against, looming over him with a gleeful smile, obviously not entirely recovered from the laughter they had both harmonised in almost perfect unison.

But Paul’s face softened straight away, unlike John’s. He looked up, his cheeks relaxing and his lips falling down, parting open as he breathed heavily, regaining his breath. He stared at John; stared at his smile and the way a lamp down the street reflected its light off his lips, making them look wet and shiny. And _those eyes._ Paul felt himself suddenly want to growl in frustration – it seemed whenever the chance arose, he’d just completely lose himself in John’s eyes, forget about the rest of the world and simply _stare,_ the maze of different shades of brown taking complete control over him.

By the time Paul looked back at John’s lips – and he couldn’t figure out quite how much time had passed before he did – he found that the cheeky looking smile belonging to John had also relaxed, calmed down into a similar state to Paul’s, and he was breathing, warm and heavy, over Paul’s face, their breaths diffusing together, warming his cheeks and adding to the sweat that had started to appear on the palms of his hands that were clenched into fists at his sides.

 _Shit,_ Paul thought suddenly, swallowing thickly as he found control over his thoughts again. _This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening; this… this… **thing.**_

Paul didn’t really understand exactly what the ‘thing’ was, though. What _was_ happening? Paul knew what he _wanted_ to happen.

At that thought, he accidentally let his eyes widen. _I **don’t** want **that** to happen. _

_Do I?_

John must have been trying to follow Paul’s train of thoughts, because as soon as Paul’s eyes opened wider than a deer’s in front of headlights, he heard John clear his throat, the deep, low sound sending vibrations through the alley, and Paul jumped at the sound, flinching as John moved his hand away from the wall beside his head. John’s hot breath was suddenly off Paul’s face, and a slightly cooler breeze than the one that was blowing earlier in the summer day caressed him instead – Paul realised that he didn’t like that John was no longer close to him, and he was actually closer towards the opposite wall of the alley – Paul realised he _missed_ the closeness, the lack of space between them. He dangerously considered pulling John back towards him, although he feared that if he did that, something more would come of it, and he resisted the suddenly overwhelming urge.

“Uh… I’m gonna head off from here,” John announced. Paul tried to ignore the way his heart seemed to fall straight through to his stomach. “You… you’ll be alright from here, won’t you, Paul?”

 _That didn’t sound right,_ Paul thought. _What happened to ‘Macca’?_

“Yea-” Paul started, then realised his voice was husky and cleared his own throat. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’ll see you…?”

“Group practice… next week, that is.”

“Right, okay.”

“Right.”

“Well… I’ll see you, then, John.”

John smiled tightly, nodding his head once before he stepped out of the alley.

Paul couldn’t put his thoughts into a logical order as he watched John walk away, guitar drooping lower down his back now as the strap had gradually loosened, and Paul lifted his own higher up his back as he finally found the strength in him to walk off in the opposite direction.

He took a sharp, uneven breath. _What the fuck is going on with me?_ Clenching his eyelids closed, he tried to dismiss the events of that night, hidden in an alley down Penny Lane, and fought desperately hard not to compare the basis of the whole scenario to a particular thought he had mustered up in a daydream a few mornings ago.

Paul gritted his teeth as he came up towards the gate to his home, being reminded of his father, and his brother, and Christ, even his _mother,_ as he walked up towards the door.

 _'M not a fucking queer,_ was his final thought before he opened the door and stepped over the threshold into his home, feeling drained and confused and still trembling from the way his heart had raced like an engine out of control.

All because of John _fucking_ Lennon.


	3. Chapter 3

_Fucking hell._

Paul was tearing himself up over _nothing_.

He knew that whatever had gone on between him and John that night on Penny Lane was probably just an accident, something completely irrelevant and insignificant. Paul wouldn’t be very surprised if John had completely forgotten about the whole thing, gone on about his day-to-day life without sparing another thought to it. Paul didn’t know if he liked that idea. That he was the one beating himself up about it, alone. At the same time, there was the other possibility than John also felt as shit as Paul did, and Paul knew that if that was the case… _ugh._ He shuddered at the bare thought of how horribly awkward their next meeting would be, and elected to avoid trying to picture it. From it, though, he drew the conclusion that he definitely didn’t like that idea, either.

He thought the same thing through, over and over, and every time it drew the same conclusion – either way, he’d end up frustrated and, probably, hurt. It made him groan aloud once, when he was sprawled out over the sofa the morning after the incident, and his father had stared at his son from behind his newspaper before mumbling, “Uh… stomach ache or somethin’, son?”

Paul wished he could actually tell his dad, to complain and bitch and just have some sort of reassurance, guidance, but he knew he really couldn’t.

Feeling alone and isolated, Paul didn’t even bother getting dressed the next day.

Or the next day.

Or the next day.

He probably wouldn’t have bothered making an effort to get himself ready the following day after that, either, if he wasn’t home alone and there wasn’t a violent rapping on the front door.

It was around midday, or so Paul guessed. Mike and Jim had gone to visit Auntie Jin for a bit, leaving Paul alone all day, caught in a permanent haze of thought. Or sometimes not. Sometimes he’d just lie down and stare at absolutely nothing in particular. He didn’t know why it was affecting him so much, why it was driving him insane in every way; he dangerously considered cowering away from the whole thing at one point. Giving up the band before he could even get started, never having to face John again, but the thought of doing anything other than music with the Quarrymen was haunting, mostly because it had been all he’d been thinking about for the few weeks beforehand, so he knew that that wouldn’t be an option – not one for him to make.

He was stuck in one of these trances when the repetitive knocking at the front door dragged him out of it.

He ignored the first few knocks, supposing it was somebody handing out leaflets or a different newspaper to the one they already had for that day, or just something as similarly insignificant to him.

The next round of knocks were harder, louder, and more consistent; a pounding rhythm, like a drum beat, echoing through the whole house. Paul could feel the door trembling, sending vibrations through the floor when he put his feet down to stand up.

With a dragged out, low, rumble of a groan, Paul heaved himself up from the sofa. He stood still for a second before moving, looking down at what he had on – pyjama pants and a black t-shirt. _Whoever it is, it better not be somebody important,_ he thought, before yanking the door open and staring out into the garden.

Stood before him was that boy. The one with the hair do ‘ _like a turban,’_ with the incredibly cheeky smirk and a permanent look of silent judgment all over his face.

Dressed in a white t-shirt underneath a jumper that was far too small for him and a pair of lightly coloured jeans stood the boy from the bus, carrying a guitar like it was a briefcase.

“Had a lie in, eh, Paul?” He quirked, raising one eyebrow that tugged up the corner of his lip.

“Somethin’ of the sort,” Paul replied tiredly, leaning against the doorframe with a sigh. “What ye’ doin’ here, George?”

For a split second, George’s expression faltered into something akin to confusion. “Harlech, remember?”

_Shit._ Paul had completely forgotten about any other plans since John. Paul only then remembered even _being_ with anybody other than John, everything was really just a massive blur to him since seeing him again. But now, being reminded, he clearly recalled being on the bus to school; remembered George, who was a year his junior and still slightly small for his age, sitting down next to him.

That wasn’t the first time they’d sat together, of course. When Paul thought about it, they’d become good friends over just chatting on the way to school, droning on about music and guitars and new records, Paul laughing at most things George said. Paul liked George. He had that very natural sense of humour – that down to Earth sort of wit, making almost everything he said funny in one way or another. He was good company, when he wasn’t mouthing off too much, which was rare, but when it did happen, you couldn’t get a word in edgeways without him ending his rants by going into an insanely awkward silent strop.

Paul, then, remembered the two of them talking about a song they’d both known – ‘Men of Harlech’, which they had jokingly sang on the bus to school that day before Paul came up with the idea to hitchhike down there for themselves, see what the fuss of the song was about.

_Fuck,_ Paul thought, a wrenching feeling in his gut making him feel squeamish with guilt for forgetting.

In front of him, George stared. “Are we… we’re still goin’, right?”

Paul had to think on his feet to answer.

“Yes!” He snapped quickly, his isolating shell suddenly splintering and cracking, and _finally,_ Paul had a purpose, something to do, something to distract him from the permanent buzzing in his mind that was inhabited by John Lennon. “Just- just, let me go stick some clothes on, yeah? Have a quick wash down n’ stuff; I won’t be a minute!” He ran off up the stairs, two steps at a time, all the energy that had been preserved over the last few days being released at long last.

He stopped, spinning around. “Oh, yeah – come in, ya’ daft get, ye’ don’t have to stay outside, ya’ know!”

And with that, Paul disappeared up the steps to the sound of George’s laughter.

***

A few hours, a few busses, and a ridiculous amount of trekking and cycling later, George and Paul arrived at Harlech; most of the road signs were in Welsh, but it was just about clear in a few of them. They’d almost gotten lost on multiple occasions, but luckily for them, there was always a polite Welshman lingering about somewhere.

It was getting dark, and Paul had managed to convince the landlord of a pub that he was legal with some exaggerations and a completely made up description of the harsh labour that he undergoes at the docks every day, and that that was his only day off. Of the whole year.

Maybe the Welsh just didn’t give a bobbin about anything, Paul thought, because surely the oversized barman saw right through the lie, knew how old Paul really looked, and it definitely wasn’t twenty-two.

He got George a few pints of beer, too, although he made sure that George was hidden out of sight at all times as they sat beside a Welsh lad and a _massive_ Irish bloke, who sheltered George from the view of any staff easily. He was still just a bit _too_ young looking, with his tiny jumper and skinny body, Paul had decided, and luckily, George didn’t put up too much of a fight when it came to explaining why he’d have to stay hidden at that time.

Tipsy and knackered, George and Paul stumbled after their new, short-term Welsh friend, who claimed they could stay at his mother’s place for the night. The two young scousers didn’t make an objection, because it was that, or the streets.

It was late when the two of them finally got settled down, top and tailing it in a single bed – George kept on putting his feet right in Paul’s face, and Paul kept on kicking George in the side of his neck. But after some cooperation, they settled into a position that was more convenient than it was actually comfortable – both of them flat on their backs, staring up at the ceiling with matching unamused expressions on their faces.

“This is your fault.” George had grumbled at one point in the late hours of the evening... or the early hours of the morning. Neither of them really knew.

“Ye’ what?”

“This – single bed, cause ye’ were too busy tryin’ to flirt with that Welsh lad’s mam to ask for a good fuckin’ room.”

“I was not.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“Shut up.”

“See – you were.”

“I bloody was not.”

“Paul, you asked her if she was married.”

“Yeah, and she was. So I didn’t flirt with ‘er.”

“Oh, well that’s perfectly alright then. The gentleman in you is truly inspiring.”

At this, Paul sat up on his forearm with a hard frown on his face, pale from exhaustion, and flicked on the lamp beside him, squinting at George through his lashes, not quite prepared for the light provided by the little but alarmingly bright lamp. “What the fuck’s got you into a strop, eh?”

“I ain’t in no strop.”

Paul scoffed, messing his hair up and smiling in a way that _screamed_ sarcasm. “Oh, alright. Ye’ can shut up, then, if there’s nothin’ the matter. I ain’t stayin’ awake for ya’.”

At this, George groaned and sat up too, leaning against the cold wall behind his head for support, and Paul smirked triumphantly, folding his arms, waiting.

“Am I… uh…”

His voice was sheepish, nervous, quiet, and for a moment, it genuinely concerned Paul.

Until he finished speaking.

“Am I really _that_ young looking?”

Paul burst into bellows of loud laughter.

George stared back, emotionless.

“Paul.”

“Oh- Oh, God,” he managed. “I can’t- I can’t breathe, oh God; oh, Georgie, stop it,” Paul was more giggling hysterically into his fist now, trying to calm himself down, because George really did not seem to be in the mood for it. “Right- right, okay,” Paul started, taking a deep breath and finally looking at George properly, tears in his hazel eyes from the harsh laughter. “Okay – yeah, George, yer’ pretty sickly lookin’.”

George’s eyes widened. “Hey – I said nothin’ about _sickly,_ I said _young,_ you cheeky git!”

“No, no – look, it’s besides the point – s’all the same to me, anyroad. Look, it don’t matter what ye’ look like, right? You’re a downright _legend_ on guitar, George. One day, I bet yer’ gonna make it big – make it bloody _massive,_ Georgie!” Paul smiled widely at his friend, trying to look reassuring and positive, and it seemed to work. George smiled softly.

“Ye’ think?”

“I know, mate.”

“Even if I look like a ten-year-old?”

“…Maybe try drums for a bit… you know, hide behind ‘em…”

George rolled his eyes. “Oh, lovely. Tah, Paul.”

Paul smirked, nudging his friend’s foot gently, playfully. “Anytime, Geo.”

If there was anything Paul loved about spending time with George, other than the shocking talent he had and the guitar talk, it was probably how easy it was to joke with him. He probably wouldn’t be able to talk to Ivan like this. Then there was also the side of their friendship that wasn’t quite as _equal_ , so to speak, that Paul hated to admit. He’d often talk down to George, speak to him like he was completely naïve and inexperienced, even though Paul _knew_ that George was better at guitar than him. It’s just how it was, and although he knows it might make him a giant arsehole, he knows he likes it – likes how that’s the way it is sometimes.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be, though.

Paul made a note to make an effort in the future to be on better terms with George, to speak to him a little nicer, because although the conversation they had just had was mostly just Paul being a twat, he knew that George meant what he had said and only wanted to ask Paul because he genuinely had faith in his judgment.

As much as Paul _loved_ the power he had harnessed, just for being born a few months earlier, he knew it probably pissed George off, even if he never mentioned it. It just wasn’t George’s way to cause hassle.

Paul smiled softly, contently, and turned to the side again to turn the lamp off again. But as he went to do so, he halted in his tracks, pausing still as a brick with his arm outstretched towards the lamp, his eyes staring straight onwards, wide and frightened, his face, if it were even humanly possible, only paled further.

“What?” George asked, eyeing him funnily.

“George.”

“What? What is it?”

George followed Paul’s alarmed gaze to the corner of the wall, and his expression instantly morphed into something almost perfectly identical to Paul’s.

“ _Spiders.”_

***

It was late afternoon when George and Paul found themselves back at Paul’s home in Liverpool; the day was warm – simply _nice_ , not the frankly _overwhelming_ heat that had become known for that summer – to Paul’s relief, this was, because he found he could handle cold weather far easier than he could handle the hot.

They spent the short time between afternoon and evening lounging about in the back garden of 20 Forthlin, mostly messing about on their guitars – Paul always thought he was better when he was in a mood such as the one he was in then; calm, carefree, completely free of any stress he may have been dealt with any other time. It was the tranquillity of the atmosphere alone that managed to tranquilise Paul’s mind, and he found that ideas and creative thoughts came to him more naturally, and he was more able to allow himself to indulge in the rhythms and melodies his guitar helped him produce, harmonising the sounds with George’s, barely even _trying_ to make something work – it just _did_.

At around six-ish, George’s mum called. She spoke to Jim for a short while, and the two teenagers found themselves squinting, as if adjusting their eyes would magically enhance their hearing, and leaning closer towards the house from where they were sat in the garden, trying to figure out what the conversation was and whether or not George could be in trouble for something or other when he returned home. He probably wasn’t in any trouble, and they knew it, because nothing had happened for him to be – but just to make sure, they listened, using the phone call as a warning sign for George as to whether he’d be having a good night back at home, or, well, not.

After hanging up, Jim McCartney popped his head out of the back door and peered out into the garden until his eyes settled on his son, and then onto George.

“Yer’ mother’s just been on the phone, son,” Jim informed George, despite the fact that Paul knew he must have known that the two of them had already been listening in and knew who it was who had rang. “Says you gotta’ be headin’ home now.”

“Alrigh’,” George replied. “Tah, Mr McCartney.”

Paul wasn’t able to contain a loud snort as George referred to his dad as ‘Mr McCartney’, and his dad glared at him as he closed the door, leaving the two lads in the garden alone once again.

George stood up and slung his guitar over one shoulder, although it was evident that it wasn’t comfortable – the instrument seemed far too big for his little body to carry with the strength of only one shoulder.

“I’ll be headin’ off, then,” he stated. “I’ll see you, uh, when I see you.”

Paul chuckled and nodded, staring up at George through squinting eyes, the sun making it difficult for him to see his younger friend perfectly. “Yeah – see you, George.”

And that was it.

The distraction was gone; left Paul to his own mind again, his own panicky thoughts, his worries.

John Lennon leaped back into his head like a tornado, tearing apart the peacefulness of the last two days and taking Paul straight back to square one.

The garden was silent beyond Paul’s raging thoughts, words and ideas and conclusions and feelings flying about and bouncing off the walls of his mind, shattering into splinters that signified extra worries, extra emotions.

And then…

_Clang- bang- c-crash._

Paul jumped and gripped onto the wooden sides of the garden chair he had been sat on since he had arrived back at home from Harlech, and he planted his feet firmly into the grass beneath his shoes, eyes wide and staring down the darkness of the ginnel at the side of the house, leading out to the front garden.

“Uh – erm, Mike? S’that you?” was all he could think to say, and besides that, just pretend that the loud noise – amplified by the tunnel – didn’t scare the shit out of him. For all he knew, it could have been a murderer sneaking around the back to beat him to a pulp, but in that moment, he was still _slightly_ thankful for the distraction from the thought of John.

“Bloody – fuckin’ – Christ- aw, _shit_ – Macca? Ye’ there?!”

_Jesus fucking mother fucking Christ._

Paul was paralyzed for a moment, not one hundred percent sure that he had definitely heard the voice with his own ears, or if he had just heard it in his own isolated mind, an echo of the easily recognisable voice belonging to John, and he stared wide-eyed at the darkness of the tunnel, watching out for a movement, some sort of evidence that he wasn’t just hearing things.

“Oh, for fuck fucking _sake! Paul!”_

That was real.

He definitely didn’t imagine that.

Shit.

“Uh-uh – John?! Yeah, yeah, one minute! I’m comin’, hang on!” Paul jumped a bit in his seat, looking around at his feet as though he was looking for something to grab off the ground to help him, then forgetting how to stand, how to walk – when he was finally able to, he found himself having to give himself subconscious instructions – _left, right, left, right, left, right – hurry up, now – left, right, left._

_Stop._

Paul stood frozen at the start of the ginnel, mouth open and eyes gaping at the sight within.

“No fuckin’ rush or anythin’, Paul! Come on – I’m a damsel in distress, ‘ere!”

Paul stared down the tunnel, squinting until his eyes adjusted to the darkness and rested on the shadow of what was undoubtedly John – with those broad, heavy shoulders and long legs – stuck in place with one leg on either side of a metal bin that just about squeezed between the tight walls of the ginnel, the metal lid still wobbling about on the floor where it had obviously fell, and John was caught up against the wall, unable to move his legs any further apart for him to be able to lift the other one over the open, reeking bin, in order to move any farther through the little tunnel.

John looked pitiful there, where he was – hands held up against the wall as though he had a policemen stood behind him, forcing him against the brick, holding his face right up against it, facing away from Paul.

“Don’t just fuckin’ stand there! Help me, ya’ bastard!”

“Right, uh, right, okay,” Paul stuttered slightly as he took a few large, quick steps in a little jog towards where John was stuck, and he held his arms out towards John, completely helpless.

“Uh… how are we gonna’ go about this, exactly?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know! Just, I don’t know, just, grab me, or somethin’!”

“Right,” Paul said again, nodding his head once and trying to look like he actually had a single clue what he was doing as he awkwardly pushed himself up against the wall right beside John, the only way he could be sure that his arm could fit securely around John’s waist in order for him to lift him up slightly, holding him like a harness, with only one thin piece of rope.

It was tricky – Paul couldn’t really see exactly what he was doing anyway, because the tunnel didn’t allow much light through, and both his and John’s faces were pressed against a wall, the coldness of it numbing Paul’s cheek slightly and leading him to close one of his eyes, so he could only see one way as it was, and since John’s larger body was in the way of most of the view, that ‘one way’ wasn’t really enough.

“Uh – right, so, I’ll just – yeah…” Paul started saying, trying to inform John what ‘the plan’ was going to be, but he found that it would be far easier to just start working and let John follow his lead. So, without bothering to speak any further, he pressed his left side closer against John’s right, completely ignoring the way his hip dug into the firmness of John’s thigh; so close, so unnaturally intimate, as he tightened his hand’s grip slightly lower down John’s waist and lifted him a little, as much as he could at first, until John started to help too, clinging onto Paul’s shoulder with one hand for _dear life_ and trying to lift the leg on the other side of the bin into the air a little more, allowing him to put more pressure onto the leg that was already over.

“Right – okay, John, are ye’ standin’ on one leg now?”

“Just about, yeah, just about – could ye’… maybe… could ye’ jus… lift me little a bit more, and then I could…”

“I think I can just… uh, yeah, I think I’ve got ye’, just, hang on, and…”

Paul’s hand slid down a little bit further to give him a tighter grip and to give his arm more room to lift John up, and he held onto John’s surprisingly sharp and noticeable hip bone now, using it to lift the larger lad up a tiny bit higher – it wasn’t too much, but it was enough for John to _finally_ be able to get his foot balancing on the side of the opening of the bin.

“Okay, so, if I just…”

“Yeah, if you just, like, hop down…”

“No-no, you clod! I can’t do that, I’ll fall in the bloody bin!”

“Just – nah, ye’ won’t, look – I’ve got you, John, look – just… just jump off.”

“Macca, that ain’t gonna–”                  

“For fuck’s sake, John!”

“Al-fuckin’-right!”

With that exclamation, John made an attempt to kick himself off the bin, tried to do it softer than he would have normally done it, and it was obvious, because as he did so, most of his weight was completely relying on Paul’s hold on him.

It would have worked.

Would have worked if John wouldn’t have completely _pushed_ Paul back, right away from the wall and from the bin with mostly his weight rather than the force of an actual push, the length of his legs spreading out behind him as he kicked himself off the metallic object and heaved Paul right down onto the dry, cold floor of the ginnel.

“ _Argh!”_

With a thump and a shockingly loud groan erupting from Paul’s very guts, the two of them were suddenly lay on the floor, Paul too busy thinking about the pain in his upper back to notice the position the two of them were in.

John lay on top of him, one of his legs nestled right inbetween Paul’s as his pelvis pressed down _softly_ onto Paul’s crotch, but it was _only just_ noticeable. John was lower down than Paul was, having fell directly downwards rather than been flung back, and so his head rested on Paul’s chest. Somehow, though, _both_ of Paul’s large, strong hands held firmly onto John’s hips, holding him in place, as if he was still trying to prove to the older boy that, ‘ _I’ve got you, John.’_

The two of them lay in the same place for a long while, it seemed, breathing heavily and trying to make sense of the situation, figuring out who was going to be the one to move away and to, well, _recover_ first.

As ever seemed to be the case, Paul noticed, it was John who moved first.

He didn’t, however, move _away_.

He moved _upwards_.

Paul sucked in a sharp breath and tilted his head upwards, right back, craning his neck; managing to stifle a moan of a _completely_ different nature to the ones he had let out only moments before in pain by gnawing down on his bottom lip with his teeth. Paul felt himself _twitch_ in his pants, and he clenched his eyes tightly closed, not daring to look at what John might have looked like in that moment – but, then again, not really having to. He could picture it beneath his closed eyelids – messy, ruffled up, maple coloured hair, dirtied slightly from the crumbling paint and brickwork from having his face pressed right up against the structure, his cheeks glowing pink as he caught his breath back – lips wet, shiny, parted open ever so slightly. As John moved up, his hip bone – now free of Paul’s hold as Paul’s hand wasn’t able to move _with_ John, so it stroked a little way down John’s thigh and rested there instead – grazed over Paul’s crotch, the bumps of the denim belt loops adding to the friction caused by the brief but remarkably _powerful_ movement, and _fuck,_ Paul felt himself getting hard beneath his jeans, and he couldn’t let this happen – not with John, not on the floor in the ginnel beside his house, _not at all._

He cleared his throat and swallowed thickly before he even made an attempt to speak, but he daren’t open his eyes fully, knowing that, if John was aware of what he was doing to Paul, his eyes would be right there, watching him, prepared to catch his gaze at any moment and get him lost in the ready labyrinth of his inviting stare, and Paul couldn’t risk it.

_Only an accident,_ he told himself, _forced_ himself to _know_ that this was just a fucking _accident,_ just like on Penny Lane, and just like John just _happened_ to be the main source of an idea that lead up to the _best fucking wank_ that Paul could _swear_ he’d had since he first found out about porn magazines.

_This is fucking_ wrong _._

“Uh – J-John, could you, uh, could you please just, you know…?”

Paul hoped that was enough, hoped to God that would be all he’d need to say to get John to understand what he was doing to him in that moment, and that it couldn’t be happening, couldn’t be happening _at all._

And Paul still forced his eyes to _keep closed_.

“ _Shit,”_ Paul just about heard John whisper above him, his voice low and husky. Suddenly the weight on his body was moving off him slowly, and Paul relaxed a bit more. “Yeah, sorry – I, I didn’t mean to, uh, you know.”

Paul coughed a little and forced himself to sit up, finally opening his eyes but staring straight on forward rather than up at John, refusing to meet his gaze. “Uh, it’s… it’s fine, anyway.”

Suddenly, covering up the view of the silver bin in front of him was John’s hand – big and with _such_ detailed lines on his palms, his fingers thin and the tips visibly calloused from guitar playing. _He had beautiful hands._

It took a moment for Paul to process that the hand that John was offering was to help him up, and eventually he grabbed hold of it, allowing himself to be yanked up, blushing slightly as he realised that both of their palms were damp with a small amount of sweat.

Paul didn’t risk it, _couldn’t dare_ to chance looking at John anymore, not that close together, accident or not, so he turned straight around and walked off into the green back garden, reclaiming his seat on the little wooden garden chair, pressing his thighs close together and resting his hands over his upper leg area anyway, watching as John swaggered into the garden as though nothing had happened, _again._

“So, what are ye’ doin’ here, John?” Paul asked eventually, pulling a tight smile as he did so.

John coughed again and rubbed a hand over his mouth, and _shit,_ Paul genuinely thought, _feared_ , even,that John was going to bring up Penny Lane, or whatever almost happened down the ginnel, and he panicked, knowing that he wouldn’t have a good answer for it.

“Well, I just came to tell you that group practice is tomorrow night at Pete’s again – you’re off to that scout… _thing_ the day after so we brought it closer to, y’know, fit you in or whatever.”

Paul smiled and nodded his head at John, and then his expression hardened as his eyebrows furrowed at the floor. “Hang on, how did you know that that’s the date I go on?”

Paul swore he saw the blur of a pink blush appearing on John’s face.

“I, uh, popped ‘round yesterday, actually,” he told him, shrugging casually but also looking slightly bashful, before he looked up again, more alert, and frowned at Paul. “Didn’t yer’ dad let you know?”

Paul shook his head. “No.” He said, and his annoyance was evident.          

“Hmm, didn’t think he would, to be honest,” John sighed, and then started to fiddle around in his pockets, looking for a smoke. “Don’t think he fancies me that much, y’know.”

Paul eyed John up and down, going from the alarming suave hair do, to the dark eyes, to the dark and ridiculously tight clothes, and Paul instantly smirked and began to chuckle. “Oh, I wonder why?”

“Shut it, Macca.”

Paul gigged almost inaudibly and looked down at his own hands, then back up at John.

John nodded his head and took a step back; putting his hands deep in his tight jean pockets after he put a cigarette behind is ear securely.

Paul smiled softly, nodding his head, _casual – be casual,_ “Headin’ off so soon?”

“Afraid so,” John answered, voice full of joking remorse and regret. “’ey, you’ve only gotta’ miss me ‘till tomorrow though, Princess, so don’t you be getting’ too forlorn.”

Paul laughed loudly as John walked away, trying hard not to let his mind wander back into its confused and hysterical state and trying desperately to bear in mind that he got to play his music the following day, play it with John, and that thought was enough to keep him going, even if the surrounding memories gave him reason to give up.


	4. Chapter 4

Paul returned home only to be greeted by rain.

It wasn’t even as though he’d gone _that_ far away – not abroad or anything, but the weather down in Filey and, before that, Derbyshire, had been practically overwhelming for the majority of the time they had stayed there – if it wasn’t sunny, it was slightly cloudy, but not cold, just _cool;_ it was practically luxurious if you were from Liverpool, the fact that it lasted for so long, anyway.

But all things must pass, Paul decided and understood as he tried to carry two cases – his guitar and his suitcase – up the path to the front door of 20 Forthlin, whilst trying keep as dry as possible as the rain hammered down around him, pattering against the hard cases and the ground, a few raindrops hitting Paul’s face every now and again, making him blink furiously in discomfort.

Honestly, the trip was slightly awkward. Paul expected that he’d enjoy Butlins more than the camp, but in fact, the tables were turned. The camp wasn’t all _that_ bad, because Mike wasn’t being too much of a little shit, if you don’t count complaining about his broken arm repeatedly, and it wasn’t difficult to get to know a few of the other lads that were, mostly, being forced to go there for a fraction of the summer by their parents, but it turned out _alright_ in the end – Paul could say with confidence that he ‘made the best of it,’ to quote his aunts, and that was that. Butlins, however, was just so … unnatural, almost, and grew increasingly so daily. Although he wouldn’t talk about it, Paul knew _exactly_ why – other than the fact that they had earned a fan at Butlins after performing in a talent contest and it was _Mike_ she fancied, not Paul.

It definitely wasn’t that.

It was his first holiday without his mother.

Not only _his_ mother, obviously. Mike’s mother, too – Jim’s wife.

She’d died a year before, in October. Cancer, as Paul understood it, but he’d stayed out of it at the time. He knew his mother was sick; knew something was _seriously wrong_ when him and Mike had to leave home to stay with one of their aunties whilst his parents remained at home; his mum had assured him that everything would be alright, that she just needed to rest, but he cried anyway. He cried into her lap and let her hold him like she used to when he was little, when he was playing football with the other local boys and scraped his knee, or when he was naughty and his dad would give him a telling off and his mum would go soft on him, scoop him up and dry his tears as soon as Jim was out of sight, and she’d always make Jim apologise afterwards, and only then would Paul take full responsibility for whatever he’d done – it was thanks to his mother that him and his dad had the relationship they did at all, because otherwise, it would have been rattling along a very bumpy road.

Mike was twelve at the time. He was old enough to _know,_ really, _know_ what was actually going on, but Paul knew that his obliviousness was mostly because he didn’t want to believe it at all. Paul hated that, though. Envied it slightly, wished _he_ could act like he believed a word of reassurance any adult said to him without it just making him even more nervous as he waited, waited for _two weeks_ before the news came to them. The evening before ‘ _that day’,_ as Paul would often refer to it as, Paul and Mike sat on opposite sofas in Jin’s living room; eventually, Mike spoke up.

“When are we going home?”

Paul clenched his jaw and tried not to look up from the newspaper he held too tightly in front of his face, the clenching of his fingers almost tearing holes into the thin paper. He cleared his throat from behind the shield and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“’Dunno,” he said, honestly, and then realised he couldn’t just leave his brother with that, such an insufficient answer, so he prepared himself to speak up, prepared himself to lie through his gritted teeth. “When mum’s better.”

There was a silence that filled the long gap between speech, and Paul was almost relieved, was almost led to believe that the conversation had been dropped, until Mike spoke again, his voice quiet and child-like and Paul swore he could _hear_ the splinters of a young boy’s broken heart cracking up the clarity of his speech as the words escaped his mouth.

“She isn’t going to get better,” he said, and finally, Paul _had_ to tear his eyes away from the newspaper he wasn’t really paying attention to anyway. “Is she?”

That was it.

That was when Paul _really_ knew – when his baby brother, who had always been so _young_ to him, accepted the fact that they wouldn’t have a mother soon. That they would have to live without her; their _dad_ would have to live without her, without her loving words or soft touches, without her being there to moan at them whenever they were late home from school, or for her to get teary at the dining room table if she was seriously upset with one of them, or even their father, occasionally; just to live without her presence around the house – in their lives on a regular basis.

It wasn’t comprehendible at the time.

That was almost a whole year ago.

And still, as they adventure into new things, new tiny, little parts of their lives that should just be normal, the loss of Mary McCartney lingers on in all three of the boy’s minds that she had left behind her, and it still hurt, was still difficult, but Paul knew if it was harder for anybody, it was Jim. His old dad, who struggled being alone, only had two teenage boys. And Paul knew, then, that he couldn’t spend his days grieving; living in mourning when his dad had to get on with life completely alone.

Paul decided that his dad shouldn’t have to.

So he helped, and that’s when he grew up, really – that’s when he felt he took a large step towards being a man.

It took a lot – took _Hell_ to keep himself together, not cry every day for the months that followed, which is why Butlins really took it out of him. The lingering knowledge that Mary wasn’t there with them for the first time ever, for Paul and Mike, felt as though they had a large tank of water dragging down on their shoulders permanently – Paul tried so hard not to look sad when his dad would burst into his and Mike’s room in the morning, acting excited and enthusiastic for the rest of the day, trying to make it as enjoyable as he could. Once he caught Mike’s gaze, and it was exactly that – _sad, knowing, understanding._

It made him almost happy to be home – so glad to get back to his regular life, which wasn’t _that_ extravagant at all, he knew, but it wasn’t _bad,_ and he’s always known that he’s fortunate to have what he’s got anyway – just makes it easier to forget, easier to numb the underlying pain he felt a lot, like an enormous part of him was missing.

School helped him to forget; music helped him to forget; friends helped him to forget.

_John._

The amount of thoughts he had spared over the holiday towards the daft teddy-boy, the scruffy musician, the flawlessness and general movement of John Lennon should have been enough to last him a life time, but it just wasn’t, not at all.

This is why the thought alone of seeing John again gave him butterflies of hope and anticipation rather than the prior feelings he had experienced, like nervousness, anxiety, pressure.

But when he _did_ see John again, which was at just another group practice, nothing felt different.

He was excited in the hours leading up to practice; felt himself buzzing and floating through the day until it reached to about five in the afternoon, when he knew he’d be seeing John within the next half an hour.

And then, he was calm.

It was like a jigsaw puzzle fitting into the right place; when you spend a ridiculously lengthy amount of time desperately searching for the right piece, constantly staring at the blank space where it should fit into, but nothing ever does – nothing else, no matter how hard you try to squeeze other pieces into the gap. You start to get agitated eventually – you’re determined to finish the puzzle, complete the mystery, and you start getting _shaky_ with impatience,almost, just with need to find this piece.

And when you do, you relax. It isn’t special; isn’t abnormal anymore; doesn’t make Paul nervous or uncomfortable when he sees John again – it makes him ease down into the simplicity of his company, how easy it was to be around him. Despite John being, quite possibly, the most difficult person he’d ever tried to figure out, he was delightfully easy to be around for Paul. He noticed, sometimes, even Pete would falter with the way he acted around John, which made Paul feel a lot better about himself when he realised that him and John just fit together as they played and Paul taught him about the D7 chord, which John had never heard of before and Paul found disbelieving and John pulled the most mesmerising face when he figured out how to use it, how to apply it, like Paul had just taught him the meaning of life rather than a fairly basic chord on a poorly tuned guitar, but it didn’t even matter that much; John appreciated it, appreciated _Paul,_ and the way his face lit up when he knew he could do something new made Paul’s heart flutter slightly, _only slightly,_ before he found himself back into the relaxed state he just fit into with John, and it was almost perfect, as far as Paul was concerned at the time.

John was Paul’s missing puzzle piece, and he was slowly sliding into the right place.

***

Paul’s first summer spent knowing John Lennon came and went like a whirlwind, and John was the eye of the storm.

Their time together was a strict progression of weekly meetings with the rest of the group, and Paul suspected that the lack of contact in between rehearsals was something to do with whatever it was that had happened in the alleyway, and then also in the ginnel at the side of Paul’s house, but Paul didn’t object to it. It worked for them; Paul needn’t worry about his actions around John, and John worked his magic by just _being_ ; existing as some sort of rock, the anchor to Paul’s ship, holding him in the right place; so long as their time together was strictly reduced to being in a, usually, cramped room with the other members, then they were safe, even if a lot of the time Paul forgot that there were any others in the room at all, anyway.

It was three days before Paul was to return to school that the tradition that lasted all of one month was to be broken, as he walked through the door to Colin’s front parlour; he closed the door quietly behind him, placing his guitar on the floor and resting it against the sofa, but as he turned around, John yelled out at him.

“Speak of the fuckin’ devil,” he exclaimed, raising his arms in the air with a look on his face that said ‘ _about bloody time_ ’, even though Paul knew he wasn’t late – he couldn’t have been – he’d left _earlier_ than usual.

“Uh…” he took a moment to glance from John to Pete, who was sat on the other sofa behind him, as John was sat on the floor, before settling his gaze back onto him. “Have I … missed something?”

“Fuck all,” John said, giving a slightly over exaggerated shrug before heaving himself up off the ground to lean on the mantel piece instead. Pete rolled his eyes and leaned on his fist, staring at Paul apologetically.

Paul raised his eyebrows almost tiredly, because this wasn’t the first time John had made a complete U-turn from his usual good humoured self to the other, slightly darker, side. “So what’s the problem, John?”

John sighed loudly and pointed at Pete. “You wanna’ explain to him, Spunky?” John spat, and Paul pulled a disgruntled face, swapping his gaze between the two of them again. “See, it’s just, Paul here seems to be far more interested in what _you_ have to say.”

“’the fuck you on about, John?” Pete asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Oh, _look at him_ , Pete – he keeps looking at _you_. Doesn’t wanna hear _my_ side of it, does he? _Oh_ , does _anybody,_ anyway?”

Paul frowned intently and was about to direct the question to John, but John looked like he was _fuming,_ like he had a car engine stuffed into his skull and it was about to burst, so he averted to Pete instead, which seemed to make Rod smirk slightly from where he was sat, next to the couch and out of John’s sight.

“What’s happened, then?”

Paul knew John was staring at him; his glare murderous and his vision clouded red, and he also could clearly picture the way his jaw must be clenched tight, highlighting the muscles in his face, gritting his teeth together and his eyes strained wide open, but Paul daren’t look at him. He kept his eyes fixed on Pete.

“ _Fuck this_ ,” John growled and, kicking over a stack of Colin’s mother’s books, swanned out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Everybody surrounding Paul seemed to ease up considerably, but Paul only felt more concerned.

“Go on then,” Paul continued. “What’s happened? Why’s he being like that?”

Pete sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands through his bright blonde hair. “His aunt’s had a go at him,” Pete started, shaking his head.

Paul frowned, and his face scrunched up into a confused stare. “His _aunt?_ ”

“Aye…” Pete started slowly, sounding unsure whether or not he should continue. “Wait. You know he lives with his aunt, right?”

Paul shook his head, taken aback by the news. He’d never heard anything of the sort. His first assumption was, _oh, it must be something temporary,_ but something told him that that wasn’t the case at all, and he couldn’t help it, but he felt like he _had_ to know the reasons why.

“No,” he said. “Why’s that?”

Rod, Colin and Len let out synchronised sighs before Pete got to answer.

“It’s a _really_ long story, mate,” Rod quipped, stroking the neck of his banjo as he spoke. “You’ll hear all about it one day, I reckon, but if ye’ know what our Lennon’s like, ye’ try as far as ye’ can to steer clear of his family business.”

Paul stuttered a few times, trying to find a reason as to why they should tell him all about it, so he could know _all_ about John, like he really wanted to.

He wanted to finish the puzzle.

Eventually, he sighed and rested his hands on his hips, giving up. “Right, okay then, whatever,” he said, making a point to sound annoyed, and it was Colin that clocked on, chuckling beneath his breath. “Just tell me what’s gone on, yeah?”

Pete nodded his head. “Well, his aunt ain’t into all _this_ – y’know, his music and all that – and basically, she thinks he’s doing it just to get at her – embarrass her or somethin’. Well, she’s gone and told him that he’s a shite musician and that he should stick to art, or at least try somethin’ academic, but he’s just gone and taken it straight to heart, John has, and now he’s convinced he’s world’s worst musician and that _‘_ nobody understands him.’”

Paul sighed loudly and looked at the floor, not really knowing what to say. So, he knew the situation, but what could _he_ do about it?

Then he remembered the first thing John had said when he walked into the room, and he raised his head again. “So, where do I come into it? ‘Speak of the devil’, he said. What was he sayin’ about me?”

Pete chuckled slightly and leaned back again, sharing an amused smirk with Colin across the room, and Paul realised that it was probably because of how arrogant Paul sounded, only thinking of what _he_ had to do with it, but he didn’t care. Wasn’t the case at all.

“Well, _he_ wasn’t really sayin’ much,” Pete started. “It was us, mostly. Told him he could ask you for a hand, y’know, teach him a bit more. Reckon it’d be good for him and, well, we doubted you’d object to it, so…” Pete sighed. “Dunno. But I ain’t goin’ after him.”

“I will,” Paul offered, without really considering it, nodding his head willingly. “I’ll go.”

Paul spun around and headed towards the door, hearing Colin yell ‘good luck!’ after him, and then realised he didn’t know where to look.

Didn’t have to, turned out.

John was sat on a little bench underneath Colin’s living room window in the front garden, his head dipped forward in his hands and his elbows _really_ digging into his thighs. For a fraction of a second, Paul panicked, thinking that John was crying. Paul was shit at dealing with crying people, but John actually looked up at him first.

“What do you want, eh? Pete sent ye’ after me, has he?” John growled, venom in his voice.

“No,” Paul answered, calm and easy, his voice like velvet. “No. Came of me’ own accord; that alright, sir?”

“Suppose.” John spat after a moment of consideration, returning his face to his hands.

Paul sighed softly and walked over to where John was, taking a seat next to him on the bench and looking at him – not really seeing anything, though – just watching the back of his head, waiting for him to move, to say something, _anything._

They sat like that for a long while – Paul sat up, watching – John, head down, fuming. Paul let time calm John down, and he waited for him – waited for him because he knew he had to. Impatience would get him nowhere with John.

Eventually, Paul leaned back in the seat. “So,” he started slowly. “You gonna’ tell me what’s up?”

John laughed. “Why, ye’ gonna comfort me, Paulie? Gonna’ look after me?” John sat up and finally looked at him, his face almost expressionless besides the clenched muscles in his jaw. Paul didn’t reply, and John scoffed, shaking his head. “Damsel in distress, ‘ey?”

Paul stared at him, his lips pressed together and his eyebrows drooping slightly as he stared at John; his puzzle piece, his whirlwind, the heart and mind and soul of a storm. And he did stare at him, but it wasn’t with anger or impatience. It was _pity,_ with a hint of _understanding,_ and Paul knew that John noticed, because John’s jaw unclenched and he caught Paul’s eyes with his own, for a split second, before groaning loudly and covering his face in his hands once again, leaning back onto the bench like Paul had done moments before.

“ _God,_ ” John groaned into his palm, and then he brought his hands down – resting them flat on his thighs, Paul couldn’t help but notice. He looked at Paul, his face turned sideways, the setting sun behind his head down the street highlighting the outline of his hair, making it glow golden. His face was soft and he wore a sort of sad smile, like he was tired – no, exhausted, and Paul tightened his lips a little more, trying to let his comfort show through a smile alone.

John chuckled slightly.

“You know,” he started. “The lads don’t like you that much.”

_Well,_ Paul thought, _could have been worse._

“Is that so?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Aye,” John answered, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Well … why?”

“Nigel, Pete and Rod all reckon yer’ big headed. Proper full of yourself.” He took a moment to chuckle again – low and rumbling. “And Colin thinks yer’ a bully and a know-it-all; forever tellin’ him how to play his drums.”

This was news to Paul, indeed, but he didn’t let it faze him – didn’t want to raise the heat of the atmosphere when John was only just simmering down.

“Yeah, well,” Paul said, shrugging, trying to ignore the fact that his and John’s faces were slowly edging closer together and it reminded him exactly of how John had looked at the church fête – all sunset highlights and glowing eyes, perfect pores making up his face into something unusually beautiful. “You should find a better drummer.”

John opened his mouth wide to let out a brief bellow of laughter. “Aw, come on, Paul,” he said. “Let him be – he’s alright.”

“You’re just lettin’ him off ‘cause ye’ can’t find anyone else with a drum kit.”

“…yeah, ta’ be honest, I can’t really argue with that.”

The two of them suddenly became conscious that the only thing separating them from the rest of the group was a thin, glass window, and they had to duck their heads down slightly and reduce their laughter to breathy chuckles. Paul leaned his forehead on John’s large, broad shoulder, his body hot beneath the relatively thin fabric of his t-shirt, and it felt like his head fit into the crook of John’s neck so nicely that he considered just dozing off where he was; the thought helped him calm down his laughter, but he didn’t move his head away for a moment, and, to his delight, John didn’t shove him off either. In fact, John just leaned his own head on top of Paul’s, his cheek against the top of Paul’s hair, and Paul let his eyes droop closed in a moment of solace.

Then a thought crossed Paul’s mind – he hesitated over mentioning it aloud, thought he should probably be digging deeper into the situation John may have been facing at home, but his curiosity and a twinge of anxiety got the better of him.

“What about you, then?” He asked, tilting his head upwards as much as he could without pushing John off him, trying to gaze up at John’s face, but only getting the outline of his chin and jaw instead. “The lads – they … well, they think what they think, don’t they? But… what about you, John?”

John, for whatever reason, briefly rubbed his cheek against Paul’s hair and Paul felt his jaw tighten into something that he assumed was a grin of some sort, although he couldn’t see it for himself. There was a slow vibration against the side of Paul’s head as John laughed quietly before he spoke.

“Yer’ a swine, Macca. A filthy, rotten swine.”

Then John did something Paul would never have expected him to.

He lifted up his right arm and brought it over Paul’s shoulders, bringing the younger boy closer to him and embracing him into some sort of tight hug, and Paul’s face slipped off his shoulder and was now rested on John’s firm chest, Paul laughing with difficulty as his face squished against John’s torso. John’s lips, however, were resting on top of Paul’s head, and it felt as though John was _breathing_ him in, inhaling him like a cigarette, and Paul giggled slightly as John’s breath tickled the back of his neck.

“’ey!” he yelped, squirming in John’s hold. “Gerr’off!”

“’ _Please’, Paulie.”_

“Oh, for Christ’s – _please._ ”

“’Kay,” John chuckled, and he let Paul go, only causing him to slip down and land with his head resting against John’s thighs like they were pillows, his own legs kicking out in the air as his heart raced with the anticipation of falling.

Then John’s face was _there,_ hovering right on top of him like a hornet, watching over him intently, and it was so close. _So fucking close,_ Paul thought, and he felt himself lick his bottom lip against his will, nibbling on the fragile skin to prevent himself from leaning up into John, because it seemed possible, seemed as though he could just reach out and _grab_ the opportunity if he wanted to – but he couldn’t.

He really fucking couldn’t.

“Boo.” John whispered at some point, his hand resting on Paul’s shoulder as his thumb stroked along Paul’s collar bone.

Paul swallowed thickly, his sight turning suddenly blurry as he tried to focus into something – _anything_ other than John’s eyes, but whenever he tried, his stare would just latch onto John’s thin, wet lips instead, and that wasn’t any more helpful.

“You know,” John started, his thumb still mindlessly grazing over Paul’s collar bone, now moving slightly further up to the crook of his neck, but his eyes were right on Paul’s, looking into them like they held the key to the universe. “You got a very lovely face on ye’, Macca.”

“Bugger off, John,” Paul managed in little breaths, trying to act like he wasn’t laid on John’s lap and like that wasn’t a strange scenario to find oneself in.

“No.” John smirked and he got closer to Paul, and _fuck,_ he could just…

“You two done out there?!”

The voice came before the body, and Paul jumped in shock, his limbs kicking out wildly in panic.

He landed on the grassy floor with a _thump,_ and John sat over him, his arms held out as evidence that he had at least tried to catch him before he hit the floor, and then Pete appeared in the doorway, an eyebrow raised at the pair of them – John wide-eyed, frozen with his arms still outstretched; Paul wearing a matching expression, only sprawled out on the floor, trying to look at Pete without having to stand up.

Then he caught John’s gaze, and there was a spark – a small spark that lit a firework, that started the fire, and John’s laughter filled Paul’s ears, and his own joined in unison, a synchronised harmony, and nothing else mattered.

***

By the end of the session, the group had done little actual playing music and more just talking.

The main factor to come out of the evening was that Paul had agreed to teach John a bit more about guitars, get him better at playing them. “Not that you’re bad!” Paul kept on reminding him, just to make sure the two of them were definitely on the same page; the last thing that Paul – and the rest of the group – needed was an angry, defensive John on their cases once again in one day.

It came to seven o’clock faster than any of the boys anticipated, and it was Paul who let out a heavy sigh and stood up when he realised what time it was before the others.

John had been sat next to Paul when he stood up with a long groan, standing on his toes and making himself tall, stretching his limbs, before coming back down to his normal height with a ruffle of his hair.

John stared up at him with a look on his face that made him appear such as a puzzled toddler – he had his glasses on, so his eyes looked bigger than they actually were anyway, making him look like some sort of furry creature from a cartoon. He looked confused, and he glanced around the room to see if he could find the reason Paul had stood up from looking for a physical form of a thought.

Paul chuckled at John’s face and leaned down to pack his neglected guitar away.

“Where you goin’?” John asked eventually.

“Home,” Paul answered blandly. “It’s just gone seven.”

“Fuck off,” John almost yelped, looking up at the clock on the wall above the mantel piece. “Shittin’ hell – it is and all!”

Paul rolled his eyes and stood up straight again, pulling his guitar over his shoulder. “Well, I wasn’t lyin’.”

John looked back to Paul, his expression almost completely blank, before a gentle smirk appeared over his lips. “Piss off.”

“That was unnecessary, that was,” Paul said, pointing a finger at the older lad and looking at him down his nose like a teacher would at a naughty child. “As yer’ new tutor, I’ll be takin’ none of that bullshit from ye’, son.”

John laughed. “What ye’ sayin’, Paulie? _Johnny B. Goode, eh?_ ”

Paul smirked, although he couldn’t deny that the pun tickled him and deserved a better reaction than the one it received. “Oh, yer’ a funny one, then,” he chimed, before turning away to face the other members of the group, other than Eric and Nigel, who had both failed to turn up that day. "Right, I’m off then. Ta-ra, fellas.”

There was a scuffling sound coming from the sofa behind Paul as John rushed to pick his guitar up and grab his jacket off the arm of the piece of furniture, followed by a slight grumble as John forced out some almost inaudible farewells. He followed Paul out of the house and into the front garden like a loyal puppy, but Paul just proceeded walking, suddenly feeling unsure of whether or not he should allow himself to be alone with John again, twice in one day.

“Paul,” John shouted after him – he was behind, Paul now out of the front gate. “Paul, wait a minute.”

His voice sounded oddly serious with a hint of what Paul guessed was cautiousness – it didn’t really suit him. Well, it wasn’t _that –_ it was more a matter of Paul finding it uncomfortable to listen to. It frightened him a little bit.

A look at John’s face told Paul that, yes, John was ‘ _serious’_ in that moment. His lips were pressed together in one thin line and his eyes stared at Paul with concentration, although Paul couldn’t tell what he was trying to find in him, what he was trying to figure out.

He waited outside the garden until John was right there, the wood of the gate being the only thing keeping them apart.

John sighed, and Paul couldn’t help but notice that the breath sounded shaky and uncertain. “Look,” he started. _Fuck,_ Paul hated it when conversations started with that word, so he diverted his eyes to the ground, waiting to be talked to. “I’m not – listen, I- I ain’t–”

“I know,” Paul was quick to interrupt, not wanting to even _go into_ this area of conversation, granted he’d been unable to let himself consider what it was he even felt every time he was around John. “I know, it’s fine – look, I’m gonna’ go–”

“No- no, don’t,” John grabbed Paul’s arm before he had the chance to turn away, to run away from the inevitable, and Paul had no choice but to remain where he was, however he couldn’t control his trembling, his shaking knees as he fought against his own body to calm himself down. “Just – don’t leave, right? Look, Paul, I don’t – I mean, do I _seem_ the type to, y’know, bring up this sort of stuff just ‘cause I want to? Like, _at all?_ ” He stared at Paul, and Paul, in turn, stared right past him, trying to distract himself from John with _anything_ he could find. John sighed, exasperated. “I’m just – I don’t want ye’ to think I’m, _y’know_ , because I’m not, right? I’m not, it’s just – things keep happenin’ between us, y’know, and, erm, I can’t really, uh – I can’t really explain them. I dunno’ about you, but … yeah. I just, I don’t want ye’ to... I mean, we’re just havin’ a laugh, right?”

_That hurt._

_That fucking hurt._

_Way more than it should have._

Paul swallowed a thick clump of saliva that had started to build up at the back of his throat and he knew he looked pathetic – _fucking pathetic,_ trembling underneath John’s hold on his arm, beneath John’s _words,_ the affect they were having on him. He’d been trying _so hard, so_ fucking _hard_ to force himself into believing that anything that happened between him and John was pure coincidence, accidents, and in being addressed to about it, called out on it by _John himself,_ who clearly hadn’t been so stubborn and disbelieving of his and Paul’s ‘ _relationship’,_ if you could call it that, well, it made it hard. Made Paul want to _overthink,_ and he couldn’t be doing that. Didn’t _want_ to do that.

“John, look, I really–”

“ _No, Paul!”_ John suddenly yelled, and Paul shut up instantly as the grip the older boy had on Paul’s arm tightened considerably before loosening a fraction after a short amount of time, realising that it was strong as a vice on Paul’s skin, to the state where it could have left a bruise. “Right, fuck it – _I ain’t a fuckin’ faggot, Paul!_ Right?”

Paul flinched, clenching his eyes closed and trying to block out the words he was hearing aloud for the first time, from another person – it was like a wave was crashing down on him, a tsunami high above him, and he was completely powerless to escape it now – an ant to a boot.

“ _Right,_ ” Paul forced out, his voice gravelly from his dry throat. “Right.”

For the first time throughout the encounter, Paul looked at John, and John looked at him too, and his face looked almost apologetic, but not quite. _Not quite,_ because it still looked like he was fuming, albeit simmering down – like a kettle that had clicked, but the steam was still pooling out of it in clouds of water vapour.

Paul spotted the bulge of John’s Adam’s-apple move slightly as he swallowed thickly, nervously, too, and then Paul found John’s eyes again and they looked the same – the fucking same. Soft and warm and welcoming and _that_ hurt. It hurt to know that they were making _Paul_ blind – blind to John’s words and actions and it scared him, because it was like being stuck in Wonderland – not knowing the true state of where he was, what reality was actually like.

“Paul- _Macca_ , I–” John started, his voice soft and calm and floating between them like the melody of a song, but Paul shook himself free of John’s hold, somehow finding his strength, shaking his head.

 “No – no, I know – don’t, it’s fine, really,” Paul stuttered. “I’m going now.”

With that, Paul spun around and walked at a fast pace down the road, wanting to free himself of what had just happened, _whatever_ had just happened, and he suddenly felt like what was supposed to be a conclusion to his _mess,_ only made it all more complex, between him and John and _hell,_ _the whole group_ , probably.

It took a lot to not go back – took everything in him to not go on staring into the warmth of John’s eyes, the closest thing to home and sanctuary that he could have reached fast enough, but he couldn’t and he _knew_ he couldn’t, just like he knew that John hadn’t yet moved away from where he had stood as they spoke – well, as _John_ spoke. But Paul had to go somewhere – had to get as far away as possible, to hide and cower away and actually _think,_ think and _use his fucking mind for once,_ because the puzzle – the puzzle he wanted to complete, the ‘ _John’_ puzzle, wouldn’t be finished without some thought – Christ, _a lot_ of thought. It puzzled Paul even further as he realised that it would be his own thoughts to scare the living shit out of him – because he knew the answer, subconsciously; he knew the reasons behind everything that had troubled him since John Lennon spun into his life.

He just didn’t want to have to face them _alone._


	5. Chapter 5

_Clank._

_Clank._

_Clank._

Paul dreamt that the rhythmic taps were the ticking of a clock – a diminutive fob watch attached to a chain around his neck. It was golden in colour, and appeared to be in perfect condition – well looked after, or simply brand new. Paul couldn’t seem to let go of it – he held onto it steadfastly in his almost ghostly palm as though it was the most precious thing in the universe – a new born baby; fragile and tender; the ticking that the arms of the watch conceived resembling a soft heartbeat – steady, yet faster than that belonging to an adult; more alive. He traced the design on the back of the watch, _feeling_ the intricate patterns engraved onto it with the tips of his fingers.

He didn’t know where he was – his surroundings weren’t paramount to him, so he didn’t bother to investigate them. The watch was all that mattered to him, although he couldn’t understand why; he’d taken no interest in watches, clocks, or jewellery at all. But for some reason, it was all he could think about – the way it felt in his hand, confusingly warm to touch; the way the gold was so well polished that you could see fractions of your reflection in it; the way the swirling patterns made up no particular distinguishable image and yet still formed some sort of work of art.

The ticking sped up – time was travelling faster, racing away before him, and Paul was utterly powerless to stop it. Until…

_Crack._

Time ran out.

Paul woke with a start and sat up in his bed, breathing heavily due to being dragged out of his dream world so abruptly; as he raised a tremulous hand towards his forehead, he found that there was a thin layer of sweat coating him. He wiped his face profusely, not sure what had been so alarming about the dream that could have caused him to wake up with such a fright – but then he heard it.

_Clank._

_Clank._

He frowned and searched briefly around his bedroom for the source of the sound using only his eyes from where he remained seated, but the room was mostly dark, the light shining through the gap in his curtains still very dim.

Then there was a shadow through the curtains – three circles hitting off the glass of the window and falling back down again, creating another clanking sound, only louder and clearer, and Paul hopped up out of bed to peer out of the window.

It took a second for his eyes to figure out where exactly to look – the only light in the small back garden was a lining of a dark blue light shining through a few of the black clouds that were fading away into the early morning.

Finally, he spotted him – John, stood there, in his back garden.

Without a second thought, Paul leaned up onto the windowsill to open up the hatchet on the window and peered out, still looking down at John, who was fully dressed and seemingly wide awake.

“ _Rapunzel, Rapunzel_! Let down yer’ mop, Rapunzel!”

“Shit – John, quiet down, will ye’?” Paul hissed out of his window at his giggling friend. “What time is it?”

John shrugged. “Dunno – ‘bout four? Maybe five now, though.”

Paul’s eyes widened into a glare and he grinded his teeth together to prevent himself from screaming the house down. _Too fucking early_.

John caught on. “Come on, Macca – Bill Haley didn’t sing Rock Around the Clock for nothin’, you know.”

“From now on, let’s assume he was talkin’ more, say, one in the afternoon to twelve in the mornin’, yeah?” Paul said with a scowl, droning out a long sigh as he relaxed slightly against the window, leaning his face on his arm.

Suddenly, he remembered the conversation the two of them had shared only the day before outside Colin’s house, and he clenched one fist, swallowing down as many nerves as he could.

“What is it you want exactly, John?”

“What, you’re not lettin’ me in then?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “I can’t sneak downstairs without makin’ noise. You’ll have to climb up the pipe.”

“You’re havin’ a laugh, right?”

“No – come on, it’s not that hard,” Paul urged tiredly, too weak to argue properly. “Hurry up, or I ain’t lettin’ you in at all.”

“Alright, _alright_ ,” John hushed, straightening himself up before marching towards the red drainpipe that scaled up the back of the house with his shoulders broadened and his arms stretched out at his sides with his elbows bent, as though he was bulkier and stronger than what he actually was, making Paul giggle softly into his arm and almost calm down the nerves that were slowly resurfacing as he became more awake and aware with each passing second.

He watched from his bedroom window as John struggled to get his foot to stay in one place, and as he found a decent place for his hands to grip onto so he could lift himself up off the ground with much effort, clinging onto the pipe for dear life and holding it close to him, as if he were more worried that it would turn into air rather than he would fall off it.

“D’you reckon Juliet made Romeo go through this shit for her?” John whispered up to Paul once he reached the mid-way point, and his voice was just loud enough for Paul to understand.

“’Dunno,” he mumbled. “Never read it.”

“Well, I think she did,” John said as he let out a quiet groan as he lifted himself up more.

Paul yawned and raised one eyebrow. “So?”

“ _So_ ,” John went on, and Paul spotted the start of a smirk on the corner of John’s lips before he looked up at him, smiling widely as if he was proud of his knowledge. “I’m callin’ you a bird.”

“M’ – right then.” Paul replied sleepily.

John let out a huff and pulled a dissatisfied face before returning his attention to what he was doing, mumbling, “You ain’t pretty when you’re tired, Sleepin’ Beauty.”

“I ain’t a bloke when I’m tired either, apparently.”

Paul heard John chuckle quietly from below him.

Eventually, John neared the top and was looking at Paul straight on, still clinging onto the pipe and, evidently, trying with all his might to avoid looking at the ground beneath him. One window separated John from Paul’s bedroom, and Paul sighed loudly at the thought of having to move.

“Hang on,” he said. “Yer’ gonna’ have to come through the bathroom window. Give me a sec.”

Without another word, Paul hopped down lightly from his windowsill and stumbled tiredly towards his door, and then along the landing towards the toilet, making sure he avoided any creaking floorboards on his way.

He closed the toilet lid and climbed on top of it, opening up the hatchet on the window in the same way his bedroom window opened.

He spotted John, pale and looking frankly scared to death, the poor sod; his eyes were wide and frightened and his knuckles clenched around the pipe due to his tight grip.

“Ye’ honestly expect me to get through _that_?” He asked eventually.

“Sorry, yer’ gonna’ have to,” Paul said, his tone genuinely apologetic. It wasn’t a simple procedure to get through the window. “I’ll give ye’ a hand though; come on, now, just grab hold of the window.”

With much effort and a lot of complaining, Paul finally had hold of John under his armpits and was dragging him, very slowly and very carefully, into the bathroom. John gripped onto Paul’s arms, trusting him with all of his weight.

Eventually, Paul was supporting John almost completely, and John’s feet were the only part of him left to get through the window, and it was completed successfully – he unhooked one foot and managed to place it onto the toilet lid, and the other one followed. His arms had snaked their way around Paul’s neck, and Paul was watching what John was doing with his face pressed rather snug against John’s chest, which smelt strongly of booze, and his own arms instinctively held John’s waist. Paul grinned against the softness of John’s shirt, remembering the incident down the ginnel and how similar the circumstances were.

Funny how the memory made him smile now, rather than flinch away from his own thoughts.

John stood, then, facing Paul, and Paul cracked a smile at his friend.

“Come on,” Paul yawned then, stretching his arms up as he tiptoed back to his bedroom, John following close behind him, mirroring his gentle way of walking.

Paul spotted his bed, the white sheets still creased and untidy, his pillow crooked, and he could swear that it never looked more comfy.

He sat down on the bed and let his legs dangle off the side, waiting for John to sit beside him, but instead, he stood where he was, his hands in his pockets as he stared around the room – anywhere but at Paul. He soon spotted a bolt on the door, and bided his time by locking it securely, leaving Paul confused and inexplicably flustered.

He felt hot beneath his tight pyjama vest, and he started to fiddle with his fingers nervously. “So … what was it you wanted?”

John cleared his throat quietly and stared at his feet, shrugging. “Had nowhere to go.”

Paul frowned. “Why not?”

“Mimi wouldn’t let me in,” he sighed. “My auntie, that is.”

“Ah,” Paul acknowledged, nodding his head. “Well … what made you come _here_?”

Apparently, Paul’s words made John falter slightly, and he stuttered over some various sentence starters before finally settling on a reply. “Uh – I … wanted to see you, I suppose.”

Paul laughed softly. “ _Yeah,_ but _why_?” He paused. “I mean, after what ye’ said outside Colin’s, I wouldn’t have thought...”

John’s head snapped up. “Thought what?”

“Well, that you’d be wantin’ to see me _at all_ for a while.”

John sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “M’ sorry about that, you know – I didn’t mean, I mean, I didn’t mean to come across as a dick.”

“No, no. It’s fine,” Paul felt obliged to reassure him.

John smiled tightly, and Paul noticed it looked as though he was hiding some sort of deep pain. “S’not fine though, is it, Macca?”

“W-Why not?” Paul struggled, shifting in his seat. “I mean, like you said… s’just a laugh, isn’t it? Everythin’ is. An’ that’s fine.”

John wiped a hand over his face, over his glasses, before hesitantly taking a seat beside Paul. He turned slightly to look at him, and Paul did the same, and they were _sat on a bed together_ and it wasn’t important, shouldn’t have mattered, but it made Paul’s heart pound viciously against his ribcage.

“I shouldn’t have said that, though,” John started. “I shouldn’t have said it ‘cause it came across completely wrong. I mean, I wasn’t lying, technically – you’re a laugh. You … I don’t know what it is, exactly; s’just, whenever I’m around you, it’s like … it’s like the world doesn’t matter and all there’s left to do is laugh – laugh away the universe and forget what does and doesn’t matter. Priorities fly out the window. And I don’t know … I mean, I forget … not _who I am,_ but more… the person I want to be– the person I _try_ to be. Forget about him, and I’m just … m’ a lad again, y’know. A little lad, just … _just_ bein’ introduced to the world again, as if it’s my first time seeing through different eyes.” He paused and let out a shaky breath, as if he was trembling all over and like he’d been holding his breath since he’d started speaking. Then the breaths turned into a nervous chuckle and he looked at Paul, his eyes begging for mercy. “How’s that for Romeo and Juliet, eh?”

Paul, for one, _had_ held his breath since John started speaking, and being directed a question rather than an internal monologue reminded him that he was close to suffocation as his heart raced beyond its limit.

After plucking up the fragments of courage that were left in him, Paul remembered to answer. “Bit more queer than Romeo and Juliet, a-actually,” Paul stumbled over the sentence slightly, unsure whether or not he should have said it aloud, not knowing if cracking a joke was an all-around wise move.

John laughed anyway, careful to keep it at a low volume. “Yeah,” he whispered, his voice croaky, as though he wanted to do _anything but_ utter the word. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

There was silence between them, but it wasn’t really uncomfortable. It was like, for the first time, Paul was hearing what he understood and, deep down, he _wanted_ to be hearing. _God, that’s sick, Paul,_ he thought to himself, _you’re sick._

A yawn erupted from John, and he leaned back against the wall that the single bed was pushed up against. “Do ya’ mind if I kip on the floor?”

His voice was shaky, as though he’d just faced the most terrifying ordeal of his lifetime, and Paul abruptly forgot about himself – all that mattered was John, in the same way the little golden watch was all that mattered in his dream. The world was forgotten, just like John had described.

“Y-yeah,” Paul agreed. He was close to saying, ‘ _no – you can have the bed, it’s okay, just this once,_ ’ but he stopped himself, feeling it was probably best to just _go with it._

“Tah,” John groaned as he forced himself up off the bed, looking around on the floor like a cat trying to get comfortable. Paul chucked him one of his pillows – it was thin and rather old and Paul felt guilty, felt like a knife had stabbed him in his guts and was turning agonisingly slowly.

John smiled gratefully, didn’t raise a word, and folded the pillow in half before lying down on the floor, an arm behind him and under his neck to hold the pillow in place, his other hand resting over his t-shirt covered chest.

Paul allowed himself to relax too, leaning down into his bed but leaving some of the quilt off him and leaving his hand to rest over the side of the bed as if to remind himself that John was actually there, right below him.

“I wasn’t wrong, though … was I?”

“Hm?” Paul hummed, perturbed by John’s outburst of speaking, but he didn’t move from staring, fixated, at the ceiling, though not seeing much at all through the darkness.

“About…” he paused, and Paul started to frown, almost impatiently. “About us – we – we _have_ gotta’ stop whatever’s been goin’ on with us.”

Paul swallowed thickly and clenched his eyes closed, gripping onto the thin sheet of the bed covers and nodding his head into the darkness. “Mhm,” he managed. “Yeah – yeah, you, uh … you weren’t wrong.”

Silence.

Silence.

“Paul?”

“Yeah, John?”

Paul felt John sit up on the floor and look at him, so Paul turned his head to the side to look back at him. John was holding himself up on one arm, and he shook visibly, his quavering arm unable to hold him steadily. He looked like a tremulous puppy, petrified of all that the world had to offer, however his face was different. His face was cold as a stone in the slowly fading moonlight that seeped through the half open curtains. It was as if he had put up an external barrier between Paul and his personal thoughts, keeping them locked up to the confines of his own mysterious mind.

“…John?”

“I wanna’ try something,” he announced eventually, hesitantly, and only after he said it did he look directly at Paul, his eyes abnormally darker than usual.

“Oh,” Paul mumbled. “Well … what is it?”

Paul wasn’t expecting it when John heaved himself up off the floor, sitting up without having to rely on his arm. He stood up slowly, though, as if calculating his distance from the ground and contemplating how decreasingly easy it would be to simply change his mind and lie back down.

He shook his arms languidly beside him, a gesture, Paul assumed, that was a physical metaphor of shaking off his nerves. John, then, sat down next to Paul on the bed, looming over his marginally younger friend with one hand planted on the other side of Paul’s body, clenched up and pushing down into the mattress, holding him hostage beneath him. Instinctively, Paul sucked his stomach in, trying to create more space in between the two of them – not that he didn’t _want_ John to get closer, it was more that he was _scared_ of what was to come, what it would _make him_ afterwards.

John edged closer to Paul, his breath hitching in his throat as he did so, although it wasn’t the first time it had happened that morning, so Paul tried to ignore it, and just lay where he was, feeling completely trapped and utterly vulnerable to John.

“ _Just once,_ ” John breathed, his voice softer now, as though he was speaking a lullaby to Paul in lieu of singing it. “One time, and then that’s it, forever.”

Paul knew, then – knew what was bound to happen, what was substantially inevitable at this point, and he couldn’t infer anything from the situation that could _tell_ him how he should be reacting to it – couldn’t fathom how to stop it from happening, or whether or _not_ to stop it from happening at all.

And there it was; the first gleam of daylight extravasating through the gap in the curtains like a ray of grace appointed from heaven, igniting the room up with light in an excitedly rare way, one that Paul very seldom got the chance to experience – he hadn’t been awake that early in a long while, and so it made it exclusive for him, to be seeing a rarity from this angle that he usually wouldn’t think twice about.

As it breezed in through the window, it scintillated onto John immediately.

Paul could see fleeting specks of dust gliding around the room, but they danced around John like he was sacred, and he _looked_ it. He really did – his eyes seemed clouded over due to the _very slight_ alcoholic intoxication he had faced earlier in the morning (or night) before he had turned up at Paul’s like a little lost boy, cracking jokes like the world was his doorstep, and still not big enough for him. The sun made his hair golden, as it had done in Colin’s garden, and he remembered. Remembered that he had _wanted this_ before, recalled that this wasn’t the first time they had found themselves in this position, or something similar, and now _Paul_ wanted to try it, too – wanted to give John what he pined for, like it was his unfulfilled destiny to, and like it was John’s symbolisation, in return, to give Paul what he wanted, if it could be given.

No longer did he care what it _made_ him – queer or bent – which he didn’t _think_ he was – or just completely abnormal anyway. For the first time in a long time, he _wasn’t_ alone. John was there, too.

They were mirrors.

Paul had once thought that, in previous contrast, _John_ was the dark to his light, the thunder to the storm.

He wanted to scream at himself, then, because he was so _wrong_ , oh _so_ wrong. John was the _light,_ the inner and outer glow of a thousand halos, the radiance of the sun and the reflection of the moon in the darkness, the distant stars watching over him, permanently, like sentinels spread out across the universe.

_The soft flames caused by a small wooden fire, burning and glowing and hypnotising._

Paul couldn’t deny himself the quirk of a smile at the words that were suddenly highlighted on a headline in his mind; the fact that it was not the first time he had mentally described John’s _eyes_ with that sentence made him grin, and then he realised it could be used to describe John as a whole, as a soul, as himself.

John let out a sigh of some form of relief, as if Paul’s smile was an answer to his prayers, and he was so close to Paul by this point that he just rested his forehead on Paul’s chest, breathing heavily, his eyes closed. When he lifted his head back up to look at Paul, a smile was on his face – soft and innocent, his thin lips far apart, glistening in the streams of early sunlight.

“You too?” He asked. “D-Definitely?” He managed, gaping at Paul, his eyes wandering over Paul’s features.

Paul didn’t have to ask to know what he meant – he was looking for closure, wanted to know that he wasn’t the only one who wanted this anymore, and it was evident he _did_ , if Paul had ever doubted it before.

“Y-yeah, Johnny,” He whispered, nodding his head. “Me too.”

John’s soft smile grew to a cheek splitting grin at Paul’s words, and he moved himself higher up Paul’s body until his forehead could rest atop of Paul’s, his horn rimmed glasses pressing down onto Paul’s nose slightly.

“Sorry,” John whispered, moving to remove the specs.

“You don’t have to,” Paul chirped, touching his arm softly. “Yer’ blind as a bat, John. And anyway, they’re alright, I reckon,” Paul giggled quietly, knowing he sounded dreadfully childish but trying not to let it get to him. “Make ye’ look like Buddy Holly.”

With an almost fiendish looking grin, John leaned back down to rest his forehead on Paul’s, their noses touching softly as they breathed each other in, like they had done down Penny Lane. Although John’s confidence had resurfaced considerably, Paul’s was still in the process of breaking down – he needed it to happen all at once, to not be given the chance to think for himself, but simultaneously, he wanted nothing more than to cherish it, hold the moment for as long as he could whilst it was still within his grasp.

His breathing sped up, noticeably, to his dismay, and John shushed him, stroking a thumb over the back of Paul’s, still tightly clenched, hand.

It was enough for Paul to relax into, and the rays of the sun had travelled already, finding the top of John’s hair again and making him glow like a thousand matches, and Paul was ready. He was _so ready_ to close this up, finally.

And it happened.

The jigsaw piece, finally in the right place.

John’s lips were wet and slippy against Paul’s full, naturally puckered ones, but the feeling alone made Paul let out a brief exhale of relief as he melted into what _felt_ like what should have been his first kiss – he didn’t believe in that, though, but in that moment he understood that he should probably _start_ believing in more bizarre things, give more things chances – chances like the one he was giving to John, and the one John was handing right over to him.

It was tentative at first – tender and more of a caress than a kiss, but after a minute, John pressed his lips harder against Paul’s, the tip of his nose stabbing into the side of Paul’s, and he felt, to Paul, like he was _desperate_ for it, like he was desperate for _Paul,_ and the concept, the _thought_ of the reality of the concept, made Paul tingle with delight all over his body, sending pins-and-needles to his toes, numbing them inside his socks.

Despite his enthusiasm, John was still nervous – Paul could tell, because as he moved his arm to rest on the small of John’s back, he noticed a vague trembling over his whole body, and he started to run circles into his t-shirt with the amalgamate tips of his fingers, making an attempt to sooth him, tell him through touch rather than words or expressions that _everything_ was okay in that moment.

Paul found himself wanting more – found himself leaning up into John rather than laying still as possible whilst John held him in place and took control over his lips, but it wasn’t enough. So Paul sat up, leaning on his arms, bent at the elbows, pressing his lips closer to John’s despite his original fear of trying, fear of humiliating himself, and his heart still raced like a permanent reminder that _this was real, this was happening and this was real,_ and he knew somewhere that this could change everything forever – but at the thought of the word ‘forever’, John’s promise came back to him – “One time and then that’s it, forever.”

Suddenly, the ordeal became far more emotionally invested in Paul than it was before – it was, as far as Paul was aware, his _only_ chance at this with John – the only time he’ll feel John in this way, and he couldn’t deny himself a muffled whimper as he reached one arm up around John’s neck, resting it in the back of the thick hair that John possessed, pulling John down atop of him, pressing their bodies closely against each other so that there were no gaps left between their chests as their legs entangled together, lost in the sheets of Paul’s bed.

In turn, John let out a moan of consent, letting himself be held against Paul in such a way, and it made Paul’s heart flip that he was able to extract that sound from John with _just_ a kiss. He smiled onto John’s lips, his eyes closed, and he felt his eyelashes briefly graze over John’s cheek.

And then it was over.

John pulled away from Paul, leaving Paul momentarily dumbfounded as to where John had gone from him, even though he was still _right there._

“W-Why did you stop?” He whimpered, gaping up at John and licking his reddened lips lustfully after him.

John smiled. “If I didn’t stop when I did, Macca, we’d be dealin’ with a bad case of sleep deprivation, because I doubt that I’d ‘ave stopped at all.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Paul complained, rolling his eyes before leaning up again.

His lips only got to graze over John’s before John placed a restraining finger on Paul’s mouth, smirking at him, _the bastard,_ Paul thought, knowing who had control over the situation now.

“One time only, remember,” John teased, quirking a bushy eyebrow. “That was your only go.”

Paul frowned, forgetting for a second that they had a deal that that was the _only_ time, and he was about to protest, make sure that there were more opportunities yet to come, but, instead, he sighed in defeat, sinking back into his pillow, a trace of a sulk on his face. He knew it couldn’t happen again – knew that what they were doing was fucking _illegal,_ even.

It was _filth_ , complete blasphemy.

Why, then, did it feel _so right_? So _good_?

John’s smirk softened again and he traced his finger over Paul’s brow, sighing softly. “Beddy-boes for us then,” he chuckled, shifting his weight off Paul to move away, until the vice-like grasp of Paul’s fingers snaking around John’s wrist held him back.

“Stay here,” Paul whispered out as a command, ashamed at how much his voice resembled that of a _beggar,_ but not willing to let John leave him yet.

He shifted towards the wall more, leaving room for John to lie down next to him in the single bed, and he didn’t miss the relieved smile that took over John’s face, evidently unwillingly, but it was there, and Paul smiled to himself as John nodded once in confirmation before lying down beside Paul, on his side, facing away from him.

“John,” Paul whispered into John’s ear, a smirk in his voice as he noticed goose bumps appear over John’s neck. “Grab us the pillow off the floor, please.”

With a huff, John did as he was told, chucking the pillow in Paul’s face.

Paul laughed at the unexpected collision and sat up a little bit to push the pillow down beneath his head, and then pressed his head down into it like he was diving into water, indulging in the luxurious feeling of being able to lie down in comfort once again.

He opened his eyes briefly, letting them wander over the back of John’s body there in front of him, giggled silently as John kicked off his shoes and settled himself into the mattress, pulling the quilt up over his shoulders.

An idea struck Paul, and he realised that that morning was _the_ morning of opportunities – one-time opportunities, as far as he was aware, and so, although hesitantly, he edged closer to John.

Closer, until his front was pressed against John’s back, spooning him securely and _slowly_ lowering his arm to rest over John’s waist gently, nowhere near strong enough to _forcefully_ hold John in place.

He felt John tense up and he flinched, waiting for him to move away, but after a few seconds of overwhelming tension, John relaxed again and, surprisingly, fell back towards Paul, leaving him grinning into the back of John’s shoulder, his nose buried into the older boy’s t-shirt, all shame and any remaining concern momentarily forgotten.

They were asleep in seconds flat.

***

When Paul awoke, John wasn’t beside him.

It was the first thing he thought of: John. Upon noticing the empty space where a warm body _should_ have been lay, Paul blinked copiously and thought, _shit, did I dream all of that? Or did he just fuck off without a goodbye? Shit._

“John?”

He didn’t move from where he was lay yet, just waited in the silence for a reply.

“Here, sir,” came a voice from the floor, and it was undoubtedly John’s. Paul closed his eyes and smiled to himself before stretching out under the covers and yawning loudly, turning slightly to lie on his back rather than his side.

A laugh came from John.

“Wha’ you laughin’ a’?” Paul asked, his voice still muffled from sleep and the slightly overwhelming yawn he had just mustered.

“Ye’ look like a fuckin’ kitten,” John joked, and Paul opened up one eye to look at him. He was leaning against the bedroom wall, fully dressed – which, Paul remembered, he had been when they had fallen asleep anyway – and was grinning lopsidedly at Paul, sleep in his eyes.

“Piss off,” Paul grinned and closed his eyes again, sighing sleepily. “How long ‘you been up for, anyroad?”

“’Bout an hour,” John answered. “Didn’t want ta’ wake ye’,” he chuckled. “Yer’ dad’s gone out, by the way.”

At this, Paul’s eyes shot open.

“You spoke to him?”

“No,” John said, looking away from Paul and down to his hands. “You spoke to him.”

Paul frowned, not understanding what the _fuck_ John was on about. “You’ve lost me,” he admitted, shrugging. “No I didn’t speak to him.”

“Well, as far as yer’ dad’s concerned, _you_ spoke to him.”

Paul’s face paled. “Y… you didn’t impersonate me…” his eyes widened. “Did ye’?”

John smirked at Paul and nodded his head, evidently trying to obtain a laugh that must have been bubbling inside him for a while.

“Oh, _Christ_ …” Paul groaned. “Go on, then – yer’ dyin’ to show me, aren’t ye’?” He sighed loudly, rolling his eyes, knowing that if this wasn’t out of the way now, he’d never hear the end of it.

“ _Oh, aye, alright, Da, alrigh’, I’ll see ye’ later, Da – oh, Da, let us wipe yer’ royal arse for ya’, Da, it’d be my honour…”_ John chimed in an amazingly high-pitched female voice, and Paul cringed at the sound.

“I don’t sound like that, you twat.”

“You do _to me_ , sweet pea.”

Paul sighed exasperatedly and glared at John, if only jokingly. “Alright, smart-arse,” Paul sighed. “What is it you’re after, then? Ye’ wouldn’t have stuck around for nothin’.”

“I ain’t payin’ ye’ to teach me fuck all, son.”

“You’re not payin’ me at all, you prick,” Paul groaned as he pushed himself up and dangled his legs off the side of his bed. “And ye’ already play guitar, John – we’re not doin’ tutorin’, you know. Just … practice, more than anythin’.”

This time, John rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever,” he moaned. “Just get ready, yeah? Ye’ look like a fuckin’ toddler in those pyjama bottoms.”

Paul agreed that that would be a good idea, and then waited for John to move.

Instead, though, the two just ended up staring at each other, John blankly and not understanding what Paul was looking at _him_ for, and Paul expectantly, waiting for John to leave so he could get changed.

“…wha’? Ye’ wanna’ watch or somethin’?”

The _last_ thing Paul expected John to do was widen his eyes as though he’d seen the most horrific thing ever and blush like a virtuous nun at Paul’s outburst. _Fuck,_ he thought, because Paul definitely hadn’t _forgotten_ what had gone on earlier that morning, but he had made an attempt to brush it under the rug, for both of their sakes – it only hit him when he noticed John’s reaction to the question that perhaps saying something _of that nature_ so soon wouldn’t have been wise, because clearly, John just _wouldn’t_ be the sort to want to be reminded of something, unless it was him mentioning it of his own accord.

Paul coughed. “Right, sorry,” he said, blushing slightly himself as he hopped off the bed and walked towards his draws. “I’ll go in the bathroom, you’re alright.”

Once he had grabbed a few clothes to throw on himself, he smiled at John as if nothing had occurred, and, much to Paul’s glee, John stuck his tongue out at Paul, pulling a deformed looking face, one of the famous stupid ‘Lennon’ jokes that John would just _do,_ and you simply _had_ to laugh at it, because it was such a _John_ thing to do.

***

Staring at a person can mean a lot of things; you may not necessarily be _staring_ ; perhaps you’re just _looking,_ because, you know, what are eyes for, anyway? But there’s always a difference between just _looking_ and _staring,_ and Paul knows that, because when John looks at things, at some people, it looks like he’s barely scathing _remotely_ interested, like a major part of his mind is elsewhere, off in nowhere land – so he’s looking, but he isn’t really _seeing._ When John _stares_ at something, he’s seeing the visual image of the object, or the person, but then he sees _more_ , too, and – glasses or no glasses – he seems to squint slightly, as if to enhance his sight further, even if there’s nothing more physical to see than what’s right in front of him.

When John looks at Paul, Paul feels his gaze like a beam of burning light shining onto him, like a cry for attention rather than just a look, and then Paul knows that he isn’t merely looking, he’s _staring,_ and without fail, this realisation _always_ shocks him into a state of discomfort, and he tries to focus on something that isn’t John and isn’t the tingling feeling he gets on the back of his neck every time this occurs.

John’s staring at him now.

Paul’s bent over his guitar on the stool by the piano in the front parlour of his house, taking sips of tea every now and again, but solely keeping his attention on the chords he plays, stringing them together and trying to make something up there and then to show John how to apply these particular chords into your own thing, and to make them sound _good,_ too.

John’s on the double sofa, leaning on the arm, his eyes permanently fixated on Paul, whether Paul was talking or not.

Paul doesn’t want to make this anymore _awkward,_ really, but he definitely wants to say something, because if John keeps staring at him like that, _something’s_ going to come of it, something that Paul couldn’t deny in a million years that he wanted to happen, meaning he wouldn’t _dream_ of stopping it once it started. But that _couldn’t_ happen, see – not again, or, not so soon.

It was over an hour before Paul finally cracked, rolling his eyes and looking directly at John. He placed his guitar on the floor, leaning it against the side of the piano, and John’s grinning stupidly and lazily and Paul’s face is stern and serious, but it just makes John grin more and Paul wants to smile back, but he doesn’t. He rolls his eyes.

“Can ye’ fuckin’ not, John?”

John looked genuinely puzzled. “Can I not what?”

“Stare at me like I’m yer’ fuckin’ Sunday roast.”

“No, no, you muppet,” John sighed. “I meant, ‘can I not, _what?_ ’ like, ‘where’s yer’ manners, son?’”

John laughed at himself. Paul held a look that was a borderline glare.

“This morning,” Paul went on, leaning back onto the wooden piano with a closed lid, as if he’d had enough of the day already. “You said that all _that_ was ‘once, and never again,’ yeah?” He waited for John to say something, but John just watched, one eyebrow cocked. Paul sighed. “Well, you did; so, you know, if you wanna’ just _get on_ with it, then I suggest you stop. You, with yer’ brooding stares – ye’ look like a hungry wolf or somethin’, for Christ’s sake.”

“If I’m the hungry wolf, then you’re Little Red Riding Hood, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s piss funny.”

Paul stared.

John smirked.

Paul stared.

John’s cheeky grin expanded to show his teeth, and _shit,_ there was this instinct in Paul that made him want to proceed ranting and complaining and handing out orders to John like he was a naughty child, but Paul was just a lad himself, not a fucking teacher, so, _fuck it._

“My, grandmother! What large teeth you have!” He yelled, swatting his hand on his chest in mock shock.

“All the better to _eat you with_ , my dear!” John growled and jumped up off the sofa and onto Paul, tackling him to the ground with a loud _thump_ as the two of them collided with the carpeted floor, one on top of the other.

Paul let out a howl of laughter, and John tried to keep his own laughter within him, because he was too busy taking over the part of the Big Bad Wolf, gnawing jokingly at Paul’s clothed shoulder, but the strange sensation of John’s teeth pinching his skin only tickled more than anything else, and Paul made a desperate attempt to swat John away and off him, but John was persistent to uphold his role.

The laughter felt good – it was the first time he’d _properly_ howled with laughter all day, because he’d been trying to keep himself professional and tutor-like as soon as he’d got himself scruffily dressed, and it was such a relief for him to give himself a good time again.

Although if he spent any time with John at all, on average, it was going to be a ‘good time’, anyway.

And then there was a click from the hallway as the front door opened, and John halted his actions completely, frozen on top of Paul. Slowly, John’s head turned to face Paul, and Paul crippled up with laughter at the doe-like expression John wore on his usually hard-set features, but that didn’t stop John from bouncing away from the young musician he left cackling in tucks on the floor.

Jim McCartney walked into the room, his eyebrows arched and his lips pressed together sternly. He looked at Paul, then at John, and then cleared his throat loudly as if to bring more attention to himself than there already was on him.

Paul’s laughing quietened, but he had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning like a maniac.

“’Allo, boys,” he said, his voice hesitant and questioning.

Although Paul was fine, John stiffened noticeably at the presence of the elder McCartney, and he swallowed thickly at being spoken to. “Hiya, Mr McCartney.”

Jim nodded once, and then slowly left the room, closing the door behind him with a slow click.

Paul looked at John with a quizzical expression, still lay on the floor, with his eyebrows raised and a grin on his lips. “What the fuck was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“You, then,” Paul laughed. “You fuckin’ shit yourself – ye’ went all good little soldier on him. He’s only my da.”

“Yeah, he’s _only your da,”_ John droned. “But he’s fuckin’ shit scary. He hates me, I can tell.”

“Oh, you petty little _ponce_ ,” Paul giggled and grabbed the closest thing to him, an empty matchbox, and pelted it at John.

John caught it and threw it back, then returned to his seat on the sofa, sighing softly as he sunk into the cushions.

“Right then, Mr Teacher, sir, get back to work, or you ain’t gettin’ an apple.”

Paul chuckled and stood up, dusting himself off before reclaiming his seat on the stool. John was grinning softly as Paul picked up his guitar, and it felt so _easy_ to just _be there,_ be _living_ in that moment, and as the sound of acoustic music filled his ears, he could swear that nothing in the world could possibly bring him down in that moment, not even the knowledge that summer was coming to a close in only two days. He’d save _that_ mourning for another day.

In that moment, everything was _right_.


	6. Chapter 6

John kept to his word.

_Once and once only, right?_

Right.

A desperate part of Paul did believe that _maybe_ John would change his mind – he’d be back with him in little under a week, throwing stones at his bedroom window, hoping to see Paul and Paul alone, pleading with him to give him something to make him _his_.

He’d be lying if Paul said that he hadn’t spent the following weeks stuck inside four walls of multiple different classrooms dazing off into nothingness like a pathetic, love-sick puppy, trying to muster together thorough images like a coloured movie in his mind, with added emotions and personal memories and the superhuman ability to understand John, which he wasn’t sure he had quite mastered yet, but afterall, there’s a reason people daydream at all, isn’t there?

Life goes on as what you would call ‘normal’, other than that. It’s strange to Paul. John’s okay. Everybody’s perfectly okay – happy, even – _except_ forPaul.

There are times at group practice, or when all of the group are just casually _together,_ where Paul will give John a particular _look,_ as though there’s more he wants to say aloud, but his eyes will have to speak for him; he looks at John like he knows something more than anybody else in the room does, and he knows that John knows, too. Exchanging a secret through simply a _look._

But the look is never returned. Never. It’s as though the John from _that day,_ the John that Paul had kissed and held as they fell asleep in that tiny single bed, breathed in the scent of as he slept through to the late morning, was almost completely gone. Every time John catches Paul staring at him, he pulls a big, stupid, goofy looking smile and although a small part of Paul cripples inside of him, withers away and dies within all of one second, he smiles back anyway, because what else can you do, really? It is John Lennon, afterall.

But sometimes, although Paul would never admit it to himself, he _needed_ the John he had to himself that morning. He needed _John,_ not some bird who he could call his girlfriend for a few weeks, get a few – hardly _impressive,_ granted it was quite a new thing in his life – shags out of and then ship them off out of his life afterwards. He didn’t _need_ that; it was just something to pass the time with, honestly; whispering sweet nothings into a girls ear was all very well, Paul recognised, but tell them to bugger off and, more often than not, they just will. If you’re lucky. And Paul finds, in this area, he is _very_ lucky.

One occasion in particular springs to mind when Paul thinks of this _John/Paul ‘look’,_ and it’s at his ‘debut’ with The Quarrymen.

October was a dreary month; Paul had never liked it, because it was the major transaction from autumn to winter, and it was depressing and dark and the only fun you get out of it is Halloween, and he didn’t even bother with that anymore. October had lost any light left in it when the 31st marked the anniversary of his mother’s death. Even John’s seventeenth birthday hadn’t brought along any newfound joy, because Paul knew exactly what he _wanted_ to do on that day, and ended up, of course, disappointed. John’s mother had thrown a small party at _her_ house for him, not at Mimi’s, and overall it was lovely, but Paul had had a bit to drink, and so had John. Paul thought that maybe alcohol would _help_ him get John back to the way he had been _that_ morning, but if anything it just made John distance himself further; the two hardly spoke a word to each other all evening, and Paul left the house in a strop, not even thinking to get the bus home, quite like the fool he often felt like these days anyway, and walked all the way, in the blurred darkness, a stomp in his step.

And then it came about – a performance. An actual live performance in front of an actual live audience and Paul couldn’t forget the initial excitement he had felt when Nigel – or, as John and Pete would regularly call him, ‘Wallogs’ – announced that they had got a place on-stage at the New Clubmoor Hall, down in Norris Green.

“I’ll do it!” Paul chirped, unable to help himself. Pete sniggered at the femininity that Paul knew must have come out with his excited yelp, but Pete only earned himself a dig in the ribs from John.

“Do what?” Nigel asked, his mouth twisted in dumbfoundment.

“Lead guitar,” Paul explained. “I can do it, I swear. Honest – if we do Guitar Boogie, like we’ve been practicing. I can do it.”

Nigel looked at John as if for permission to agree, and Paul copied the action, too. John smiled and nodded his head.

“He can do the solo, our Macca can,” he elaborated with a fond grin on his face. He never looked directly at Paul as he spoke. “ _Bollocking_ better than Eric can, anyway – I say we give it him; let him have a go, eh?”

And then that was it. The next thing Paul was aware of, he was in a busy, steamy dressing room nearby the public loos in the Hall, fondling about with his greasy hair mercilessly, straining his eyes to stare into a thickly condensated mirror. There were other skiffle groups sharing the room with them, a lot of which had already performed that night and so were sweaty and each made a contribution to the thick atmosphere by bringing in with them a cloud of heat and steam from their overworked bodies.

Paul’s hands were shaking and his brow was beginning to break a sweat, but he wasn’t _scared –_ not yet. He had confidence in his musical ability and he knew he _could_ do this without fail – unfortunately, though, he could not see into the future, and he wasn’t sure if he _would_ do it without fail.

“Ey-up! _Where are we goin’, fellas?!”_ Came a gruff voice feigning a strong western American accent from somewhere behind Paul, and there was John, thick hair a mess already from the bustling about of the room, the top few buttons on his wrinkled shirt undone, stood on top of an unused dresser, gazing down on the rest of the group with an almost manic smile on his face.

Paul grinned knowingly – cheesy as it may be, he _loved_ this procedure.

“To the top, Johnny!”

“Oh, yeah?! And where’s that, boys?!”

“To the _toppermost_ of the _poppermost_ , Johnny!”

“ _Right!_ ”

John jumped down from the wooden dresser and joined the rest of the group on the ground, standing up bold and strong, picking his guitar up by the neck, all confident smiles and broad shoulders.

Paul swallowed thickly and stared at John as he moved on to discuss something with Pete, something that Paul wasn’t the slightest bit interested in and so allowed the words to flow through one ear and leave straight out of the other, but he refused to allow his eyes to leave John. They were wide and alarmed and doe-like and he knew that he wasn’t actually _saying_ anything, knew that John couldn’t hear him, but his eyes were screaming for help in that moment, trying to get John to notice him and he fucking needed John, _Johnny_ – not _just John_ but _his_ John, the one that he had known for a short amount of time and the one he had lost only too soon after.

“Uh – ‘Quarrymen’?” An unfamiliar heavy scouse accent came from the doorway of the dressing room, but Paul couldn’t see the figure clearly due to the thickening smoke that had started to fill the room as more groups returned and more blokes gasped down much needed cigarettes.  “Yer’ on, lads.”

With a heavy gulp, Paul jumped to pick up his cello guitar, caressing it as if it was something to be cherished, like he was holding his life in his sweaty hands.

There was an over-enthusiastic cheer from the four guys surrounding him, shuffling out of the door, rushing Paul forward before he even had the chance to understand that this could be his ‘ _big break_ ’, but similarly could ruin everything he had built up with the band and with John – shit, with _John –_ what did they have, really? Not what he _thought_ they had.

But the _songs_ – Paul _had_ to show him the _songs_ he had started to write – they weren’t necessarily _for_ John, the lyrics or anything, but they were still for him in a sense that they were specifically for John to _hear,_ to critic, and if he fucked up this tonight, he might not even get the chance to play them for him.

The stage was lit rather brightly but the smoke that had clouded up the dressing room was no thinner in the Hall; despite the extra space, there were a lot of people making up for it – a shit ton more people than what Paul originally anticipated.

Paul shuffled to his place but instantly put on his ‘business’ expression, all lovely Paulie and charming smirks and little waves at the crowd. John went centre stage, the usual ritual it would seem, as he went straight towards the lead mic as if it was his natural habitat to be exactly _there._

There isn’t much time for Paul to pay attention to snappy introductions that John blurts out before John looks at the group surrounding him, gives them one reassuring nod, and like a gun shot at the start of a race, that’s the trigger – _they’re off._

They kick off with an easy melody, John’s singing keeping them all in time with each other, the steady scrapes of Pete’s washboard reminding them what’s coming up next or who’s doing what, and Paul forgets what’s going on around him, really – beyond the stage is the dark side of the moon to him, because he’s focused on _his_ music, the sounds that are coming out from beneath his finger tips and it’s exhilarating – it feels like being shot up into space, attached to a comet, roaring through the sky at the speed of light and the world is moving before you, and you can _feel_ it beneath you, trembling and mighty and breath-taking – that’s what Paul feels when he plays music, and it’s no different on-stage that night.

Before he can process it, it’s over, and John’s introducing Paul to centre stage and taking a step back, and Paul doesn’t care any longer – it’s his time and if it’s going to happen, then he should let it.

He takes a steady breath, wipes his hand across his sweat ridden brow, earning a wolf-whistle from a group of older girls in the far corner of the Hall, and he smirks, _tah, ladies,_ he thinks, and he opens them up to Guitar Boogie, the quick pace of the song overtaking the nerves he knew were growing within him but he fought to distinguish.

The next short few minutes are a build up to the solo, gradually leading the audience up into excitement that Paul would have to satisfy them with, and his eyes grow wide despite himself, and he searches for John.

Searches for John because his eyes are still _screaming_ for help, or some sort of reassurance, but he never finds him, and the solo’s coming and–

He’s blown it.

His fingers tremble and they’re suddenly incapable of reaching all the way around the fret board; he missed the first four notes by a few seconds and he hears chorus’ of grumbles and groans of disappointment from the crowd gathered below him and he falters, his breath hitching in his throat and he can’t even make up for it with his voice because now all he can muster are squeaks of uncertainty and embarrassment.

It takes him an everlasting while, it so seems, before he’s able to find his way around the fret board and work out the rather complex, speedy texture of the solo, but he does it.

Somehow, he feels like he’s made it out alive.

But he’s fuming and what’s worse is he feels like he has somebody to blame; John.

John because he wasn’t there when he needed somebody to answer his _eyes_ , his stare and his pleas and cries for reassurance, and he feels stupid and childish and wants to kick and shout about and when John corners him in the dressing room, he wants to smash one of the mirrors and spit at the floor and _I can’t believe I just fucked that up._

Instead, he picks up his guitar, and he plays.

A song nobody’s ever heard.

And John listens, but doesn’t _see._

***

It’s February by now and 1958 has taken to a chilly start, which isn’t entirely surprising but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant or even endurable. In England, cold is just as bad as heat and Paul, one amongst many, never seems to be happy with anything above or below average. It’s always _too_ this or _too_ that and now, it’s _too cold_.

John’s Art College is next to Paul’s school, and so it wasn’t rare that Paul would bump into him on the odd occasion upon entering and leaving the buildings, but it _was_ rare that they bothered speaking – not when they were with different groups of people or _especially_ with girls (which was more likely to be John than Paul granted that no girls were really _in_ his school).

So Paul leaves the Liverpool Institute on a crisp February afternoon with his black cotton coat wrapped tightly around him, George by his side as they make their way to their bus stop in silence, the frost bitten wind taking most of their attention rather than conversing with the other.

It’s going to be a long day, Paul knows – there’s a gig later on in the evening at the Wilson Hall but Paul’s too exhausted to think about that. School’s changing for him now – it’s all a lot more serious than usual. GCE’s are just around the corner, and so teachers are particularly pushy, especially ‘Dusty’ Durband, Paul’s English professor. But Paul discovers that with this comes great punishments, too, and he finds himself being caned far more often than what he used to be getting – he assumed it was because of his new experimentations on hairstyles and the increasingly tight pants he would elect to wear around school, and not because he was _actually_ doing anything wrong.

With his hands in fists inside his coat pockets and his quiffed hair blowing wildly in the wind, George let out a grumble.

“Louise is havin’ her mates ‘round later,” he announced. “Honest, I’d wish for anythin’ to get out of it. A part of me hopes this wind picks up a bit; can see it on the news now. ‘Nobody leave the house! Mad winds blow old ladies down the street! Oh, what’s that?! Jesus Christ, the Queen Mary’s up outa’ the docks and into the sky! Run for yer’ life!’”

Paul let out a snort of laughter as they speedily glanced left and right before crossing the street. “I’ll go ‘round, if ye’ like,” Paul smirked. “Got a show tonight. I do love doin’ it but God knows how I’m gonna play tonight. Me’ hands are killin’ me! Tell ye’ what, that bloody headmaster of ours doesn’t half have a good whack in him.”

George laughed and shook his head. “What did you do this time then, eh?” He raised an eyebrow in Paul’s direction, his eyes squinting slightly against the wind. “Thought yer’ hair was a bit outgoin’ this mornin’, actually. Yer’ livin’ on the edge, you are.”

Paul laughed and was about to reply further before he actually got the chance to look up at the path in front of him, where three older, taller, familiar looking lads were making their way towards him and George.

George faltered in his stride and seemed to shrink a lot smaller than what he already was, immediately intimidated by the evident superiority of the older college students, whereas Paul smirked, all challenging and arrogant.

“Alright, Princess?” John chimed, grinning widely as if he had a point to make in his question.

“Hiya, Johnny,” Paul answered mindlessly, smiling casually now rather than smirking. The bus stop was only a little further down the street and he knew George was growing increasingly uncomfortable beside him, but he knew if John was talking to him at all, it was because he had something worth saying. “Stu,” Paul acknowledged. “Bill.”

The two others boys stood on either side of John nodded once each and looked at the floor, having no taste for youngsters such as Paul and George and definitely not willing to join the conversation.

“So, tonight,” John started, running an inky hand through his scuffed up hair. “See, the bus doesn’t go down to there – y’know, Norris Green n’ that, so, uh … d’you think your da’ or someone could maybe give us a lift?”

Paul frowned. “Nah, he won’t be wantin’ to do that,” he answered honestly. “I can’t be doin’ with asking him, John. He’ll have me one, he will. We’ll have to find another way to get there.”

“Well, Jesus, Paul, Colin can’t fuckin’ carry his drums there, can he?” John glared down his beak-like nose and through his horn-rimmed glasses, but the piercing look only made Paul’s knees go weak.

From beside Paul, George loosened up slightly and rolled his shoulders around in his coat, looking slightly impatient. “Uh – I don’t mean to interfere or anythin’, lads,” he started, his voice sounding just as confident as ever despite George’s expected nerves around people he considered to be out of his league. “But if ye’ need a lift, _my_ dad can do it for ya’. I mean, he’s a bus man, so…”

“Beautiful!” John exclaimed, grinning triumphantly and clapping his hands together, making Stu flinch slightly. Paul cringed at the thought of having John around George’s dad, because Paul doubted he’d utter a word of thanks to the kind old bus driver. He can be a right ungrateful sod sometimes, John can.

Then again, Paul wasn’t always an angel.

“Right then, Paulie,” John went on, moving to walk past Paul but placing a hand on his coat clad shoulder instead, squeezing it tightly and looking at Paul softly, their faces closer together than they had been since … _well._ “I’ll see ya’ later, yeah?”

“Yeah, Johnny,” Paul nodded, his voice slightly croaky and his eyes hazed over, looking as though his lips were saying one thing but his mind and sight were elsewhere. “I’ll see you.”

Without another word John, Stu Sutcliffe and Bill Harry continued walking off in the opposite direction and Paul stood still, dumbfounded for a moment for no apparent reason.

“ _Shit!”_ George yelped, snapping Paul back to reality with a slap to his shoulder. “ _Paul!_ The bus!”

With that exclamation, two pairs of polished school footwear patted down the street in a hasty jog, and that was that.

***

“George, are ya’ sure your da’s really alright with all this?” Paul inquired after George as he fumbled awkwardly with the handle on his guitar case from the back seats of George’s father’s empty bus, waiting for the aging man to head them off to the bus stop on by Penny Lane roundabout, where John and the others would be waiting for them.

“Sure,” George shrugged as if he didn’t _really_ know, which Paul realised was slightly contradictory of his verbal answer. “I’m happy to just be out of the house, ta’ be honest. I don’t doubt that he feels the same – our Lou and her mates can be a loud bunch, y’know. Mam’ loves it; Da’s not always been quite the same.”

Paul sighed in defeat and nodded his head before turning to face out of the window, drumming his fingers against the hard back of the guitar case impatiently.

For some inexplicable reason, Paul was feeling peculiarly exhausted – he subconsciously prayed that the drowsiness he felt would wear off sooner rather than later, _much sooner,_ because he knew he couldn’t go about risking another mistake, on-stage, anyway. Without his much needed closeness to John, he genuinely feared that there was some possibility that his guitar playing and his singing were the only things keeping him in The Quarrymen.

Although, it wasn’t the _whole band_ he was particularly mithered about.

Obviously, it was _still_ about John.

           

The Wilson Hall was a nice place to perform at, Paul concluded, before he had even gotten on-stage. The room was deliberately dimmed and the atmosphere seemed very easy, as if you were entering an exotic spa rather than a dance hall. The Hall had no band playing when the group arrived, and the whole sound system was running off a record player hidden behind a curtain on the tiny stage, so all you could really hear was the hums of mindless chatter coming from the groups of people all sat around tables that surrounded the dance floor like strict fences. The crowd seemed youthful and yet impeccably grown up – the majority of the girls there couldn’t have been much older than John, and yet they sat with one slim leg over the other, their heads high as they smoked endless cigarettes with mature expertise – some could almost pass for their 20s, if you diverted your eyes away from their breasts and still young-looking faces, despite the carts of make-up they had clearly applied in an attempt to appear older, more respectable.

Pre-performance nerves started to creep up once again – since Paul’s first appearance with the group, back in October of the previous year, they had continued to do shows; a considerable amount, too, as far as Paul was concerned, but he still got a twinge of nerves before they had to go up, almost every performance, without fail.

George wasn’t allowed into the tiny dressing room, which was basically just a walk-in cabinet with a mirror stuck on a wall. Paul tried to get him in, knowing that the simplicity and easiness of George’s presence would probably help him to relax, return him to tranquillity before he went on-stage – perhaps even his dry humour would wake him up more, too, because he was still feeling a sense of exhaustion, and kept resorting to dipping his fingers in water and flicking the droplets onto his face.

The manager was persistent that George could not enter along with the group, and so George obeyed, finding a seat at an empty table in the dark corner of the room beside the stage.

Paul appreciated his friend’s choice in seating, as it made him easier to spot when he stumbled tiredly out of the dressing room and into the main Hall, sighing as he slumped onto a wooden stool opposite George.

“I’m fuckin’ shattered, Georgie,” Paul groaned into his arm. “A nap would be fab ‘round about now, y’know.”

George smirked down at his older friend, who was now bent forward with his head resting on the table. “Give us a show, Paul!” He demanded, slamming his hand onto the rickety table to shock Paul into an upright position. “Ye’ better wake up, you know. You’re gonna’ be on soon, it’s nearly ‘seven, now.”

Paul frowned and nicked a large gulp of George’s bottle of coke before pushing himself up and out of the Hall, knowing that George was entirely right and that he did have a show to be getting on with; he wasn’t just a watcher in the audience, not anymore.

Paul caught up with the rest of the group just as they were readying themselves to head up the little sidesteps leading up to the stage; it was funny, watching them be oblivious to his presence for a split second. They all looked very placid, as if they were just about to catch a bus rather than perform in front of a large crowd of people. John fiddled endlessly with the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt, until he spotted Paul watching them from down the corridor.

John’s face lit up into an inexplicable toothy-grin, and it was the most heart-warming thing Paul had laid his tired eyes on since the enchanting sight of John smiling into his chest as the sunrise glowed off his hair.

Paul smiled back and for a moment, it was as if John was replying to all of the times Paul had looked over to him to find him averting his gaze, all those times Paul had wanted and sometimes _needed_ him. The smile Paul returned to the older boy came out as more of a grateful grin than a friendly smile, and in turn, John’s expression softened a great amount too, as if he was put at ease just as much as Paul had been. He then returned to furiously trying to button up his sleeve cuff, and Paul chuckled as he joined the group and the instruments scattered around them.

 

The stage was electric – the heat was pouring off every member of the group as they played for at least half an hour before their last song was due, and Paul felt drunk on adrenalin. The crowd were great – in the past, they hadn’t always had quite such positive reactions to their shows and appearances. But the girls in particular, once so neat and preserved, suddenly appeared wild and overcome with rhythm and dance and, probably, some slight sex appeal.

With an excitable screech coming from John as he did an enthusiastic spin, evidently overtaken with the energy of the music, Paul laughed loudly, uncontainably; if he admitted it to himself, the whole performance was a complete joke. John and a few of the other older boys – Colin in particular – had chugged down a few beers beforehand, and so were all particularly giddy with the slight intoxication. It was infectious, though, and soon enough Paul caught up with the hyperactivity going on around him.

Even George played a part in the madness – laughing madly and standing up on the shaky table he had been sat at, wiggling his hips and swerving his pelvis in an Elvis-like fashion, making a few younger girls go absolutely crazy. Paul couldn’t deny how fucking funny he had found it – at that time, George’s appearance was similar to that of a description of an elf, and an elf dancing to Tutti-Fruity all seductively? You can imagine.

The group hastily agreed on their final number, ‘ _Oh Boy!_ ’, a specific favourite Buddy Holly record of John and Paul’s more than the other boys.

John sings, Paul backs him up, and not much gets better than it – the rush, the last song of the evening, the need to _perfect it_ but also make it the most fun thing he accomplishes over the night. It’s actually a beautiful sight, he finds – watching John more intently than he watches his guitar beneath his fingers, how John sneaks cheeky glances at Paul every now and again when it’s Paul’s turn to belt out a few of the lyrics, mirroring John’s words.

It’s all too much for one song, though – within the space of a mere minute, Paul feels tipsy over nothing. After months of neglect, almost, it’s like being punched in the gut with something you weren’t expecting to ever find again. The sanctuary he was close to finding, returning.

“ _All of my love, all of my kisses, you don’t know what you’ve been-a missin’, oh boy, when you’re with me, oh boy, I want the world to see that you, were meant, for me…_ ”

John belts out the last few lines with emphasised boom to his tone and Paul’s so mesmerised that he forgets to join in with the much rehearsed mirrors of the ‘ _oh boy_ ’s, but it takes him until that moment to be overwhelmed with a revelation that those precise lyrics meant more to him than they _originally_ had done, and, similar to John’s sudden recognition of him once again, it punches him deep in the gut like he’s discovered something extraordinary, something that could change everything all over again.

The crowd dancing and jumping and shouting beneath them gave a chorused cheer, a few comedic boos scattered around too, and Paul wanted to flip them off because _come on, we are pretty fucking great,_ but he didn’t – he waved at the young audience, but _smiled_ at John, and what struck Paul deep in the _heart,_ was that John smiled back.

 

Paul’s mood had perked up even _more_ as the manager of the Hall announced that there were drinks waiting for the boys at the bar, granted John had managed to persuade him that the whole group was eighteen-years-old, or for Colin, older. Paul fancied a drink that night, anyway – the evening had turned into an overall good night for them, and perhaps getting a bit drunk would only make it better.

It’s only his second pint and he’s already tipsy – not _drunk,_ but giddy and giggly and starting to lose the complete control he had over his actions earlier on in the day. John, however, seems in a world of his own – his eyes were cloudy and he kept on swallowing thickly, as if his throat was dry despite the icy beer he kept on returning to.

He looked _sad –_ like the world wasn’t on his side. The room moved and a lot of the group had dispersed out into the crowd, looking for single girls to mingle with, but Paul sat beside George at the bar and John sat a few seats away from them, looking disoriented and tired as he leaned on his fist.

“Sorry,” Paul blurted out at George, who had been in the middle of telling a story about a girl that had thought he was sixteen rather than fourteen. George shut up instantly, frowning at Paul, who had his eyes fixed on John. “Sorry, hang on a minute, George.”

Paul stumbled up out of his seat and left George where he was, looking confused and slightly lost in the huddle of people, but Paul secured a seat next to John and John looked up at him straight away.

Paul sighed softly. “What’s the matter, John?”

John frowned defensively. “What’s the matter with you, eh, Paul?”

Paul rolled his eyes and then stared at John, trying to look at him pointedly rather than get lost in his features and his eyes and the affection he undoubtedly felt towards him.

John gritted his teeth and Paul saw the muscles in his jaw contract and then relax as he sighed and shrugged. “Dunno – nothin’s wrong.”

Paul raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Oh? Really?”

There was a moment of silence as John seemed to forget about the conversation, about Paul who was waiting patiently beside him, and stared over the bar in front of him, lost in his mad mind.

“John?”

“Come outside with me?” John mused, taking a hasty swig of his beer and standing up tall, swaying slightly.

Paul smiled and nodded, knowing that it was more likely to be receiving more answers when they were alone and _maybe even something more,_ he couldn’t stop himself thinking, but he pushed it aside as John lead the way through the crowd and out to the front door.

The street was dark and crispy cold and Paul could see the clouds of John’s breath escaping into the frosty air, and Paul folded his arms over his chest to keep himself warm, having left his coat in George’s capable hands, but thankfully keeping on his tweed jacket.

John didn’t talk to Paul straight away – instead, he glanced around and nodded in a way that said that he had found what he was looking for and headed towards the dark shadows in a wall that indicated a wide alleyway travelling down the back passage of the houses on the first row of an estate.

Paul followed obediently, and his heart rate picked up like he was about to make his way on stage all over again and there was that adrenalin, the same rush he felt when he played his music and that was that – John was his music, John was the melody to a song and the audience to Paul’s musical musings all at once and–

It happened too fast.

There was a few seconds of the two of them staring at each other through the dim light of a nearby street lamp, trying to see more of the other but failing to, and Paul felt a rush of courage – a wave of bravery that he hadn’t felt before, and that was it.

John was up against the ice cold brick wall, standing tall and _freezing_ like a glacier, and John didn’t even make an attempt to push Paul back, to take control. He just stood there, allowing it to happen all at once.

Paul’s lips were cold and Paul soon discovered that John’s were, too – the feeling of cold against cold made Paul shiver and the hair’s on the back of his neck stand up and he forgot to breathe for a second, although he then realised that perhaps it wasn’t the icy feeling on his lips, but the feeling of _John_ on his lips again; he quickly fumbled about in the dark to settle his hands on John’s shoulders, leaning up to keep his lips where they were because he was _desperate,_ desperate for John and desperate for this closure – the closure that would only turn out to be a whole new story in the making, setting them off crazily for the rest of, well, the seeable future which, with John, Paul found seemed like forever.

Paul didn’t think it over when he inserted his knee inbetween John’s thighs and dared himself to do more, go further, just keep going because _sod it_ , _he could –_ this wasn’t John telling him that it was a one-time thing anymore, this was _him,_ taking control and doing what he knew he _wanted_ and what he was scared of and he knows what it’s like to face your fears in that moment – John was his fear, but he hadn’t been able to figure out whether it was the fear of losing him, or the fear of finally _having_ him that was more powerful.

John gasped and very hesitantly gave in – for the first few seconds, Paul found that it was _him_ doing everything – him kissing John with such passion that he didn’t know he even had in him, him holding John beneath his hands and pinning him in place and not wanting to let him go, let him leave him – not just then, but ever again.

John’s hands settled on Paul’s waist and he slowly puckered his thin lips to kiss Paul back softly, and it drove Paul _mad,_ because it wasn’t enough – kissing didn’t show John what he wanted to say.

“ _Want you, Johnny,_ ” he whispered onto John’s lips, his breath warming John’s face. “Y’know I do, don’t you?” He leaned to the side then, pecking kisses along John’s neck and leaving a gentle bite mark on the soft crook in between his neck and his shoulder.

Instead of proceeding with his lip work, Paul rested his head on John’s shoulder, tilting himself to look up at the side of John’s face, searching for a reaction – Paul was breathless and panted heavily against the bare skin on John’s neck but fought to speak more, to find out more. “Johnny? You _know_ , don’t ye’?”

For a crippling second, Paul was led to believe that John was just going to stand there, petrified into a stone structure, but eventually, _thankfully_ , there it was – a nod from him, and Paul noticed the older boy’s eyes were closed and he breathed in quick but feathery breaths. “ _Yeah,”_ he whispered, and then swallowed thickly, preparing himself to speak a little bit louder. “Yes, I know – I know, Paul.”

His voice quaked and Paul smiled as he leaned back into his neck, nuzzling his nose against the newly warm skin before pressing another feather-light kiss there.

The soft smile turned into a devilish smirk as Paul realised the true power he harnessed then – he shifted his knee upwards, grazing it against the bulge that, Paul realised with a jerk of pleasure and excitement, had already begun to form beneath John’s jeans.

John sucked in a harsh breath through his teeth and let his head lull against the top of Paul’s and Paul repeated the action a few more times – rubbing his own denim clad knee against John’s crotch with what seemed like expert patience, letting his left hand snake its way down John’s torso, deliberately dragging his thumb over the peaked part of his chest that Paul knew would push him further, and finally let his hand settle on his waist.

John moaned softly and tilted his head a little bit, pressing a small, weak kiss to Paul’s temple. “Paulie – Macca, _please_ ,” he started, a whimper in his throat. “Come on – you know, too. _You know_.”

Paul grinned and accepted the vague invitation to continue – his hands were trembling but only enough for _him_ to notice – John didn’t seem to care. Paul knew there was a twinge of nervousness in him, but there was some sort of adrenalin and excitement of power play still leading him on – he felt far more drunk than what he actually was, and that wasjust on _John_.

The hand on John’s waist curved down further, over his hip and onto the start of his jeans – Paul traced his calloused finger across the creased denim, stopping as he reached the cold metal of a button and a zip and hastily managed to pop the button open with surprising speed, the zip dropping soon after.

Paul’s hands had been warmed up slightly from the heat beneath John’s jacket, thankfully, so he didn’t have to hesitate much before letting his fingers travel downwards to the heat of the inside of John’s underwear.

John’s chest heaved slightly and his mouth fell open as Paul hesitantly grazed one finger down John’s half-hard shaft, teasing from base to tip. The echo of a low groan escaped John’s lips and Paul bit down on his own, feeling himself hardening but not letting it get to him too much, trying to put himself to the back of his mind and focus on John, what he could do for _John._

The strangest feeling Paul had experienced so far was then closing his hand around the base of John’s length – it was hot and thick in his palm and Paul licked his lips because he could feel _every detail_ with his hands, the sensitivity of the canings he had received in school that day remaining. John could probably feel the slight cuts and bumps on Paul’s hand but if he did, he didn’t say anything – he nodded his head to an unspoken question, mindlessly gnawing at his bottom lip and now beginning to thrust his hips forward into Paul’s hand, but throughout it, Paul’s thigh hadn’t moved away, so any grinding John did do was not to much effect.

Paul knew this was filthy – they were both lads huddled together in an alley, _a fucking alleyway,_ doing _this_ and it didn’t seem right, but it didn’t matter because _smite me for it,_ but it felt _good._ Paul realised that it was that difference that made it all the more magical for him – it was wrong, it was an act of rebellion, but more than that, it was John and John was _his_ , then. He knew it – this was surrender in the only way John could physically prove it and it was like winning a prize, but at the same time, drilling a hole deeper into a volcano, waiting for some disaster to strike, something to go wrong.

In that precise moment, though, _it didn’t fucking matter._

Paul had never done anything like it to another man before – he was fifteen, and it was almost unheard of anyway. He wouldn’t have thought– he wouldn’t have _prepared_ for something like this to happen with John beforehand because he just really doubted it after the few weeks of _nothing_ passed by.

But it was like magic, like making a wish to be perfect and having it granted – the rhythm of pumps was set up like a beat on a bass drum, Paul’s face buried in John’s neck as his whole arm moved with the movements his hand was trying to master – John’s breath was uneven in Paul’s ear and he was still making attempts to grind upwards, to beg for more and now being fully hard and _bursting_ to let himself go, there were erratic hip movements everywhere.

Paul twisted his wrist to try and urge John on then, giving up with the postponing act and finally giving in to John’s needs. He tugged a little harder on the warmth of John’s member, pumped faster like his arm was working away in a race with some unmentioned force.

John groaned and spilled over Paul’s hand and the feeling of another man’s semen on his palm was alien to him, but too _sexy_ to deal with all at once and he grinned triumphantly into John’s shoulder before leaning up to press a kiss to the sensitive skin behind his earlobe – to Paul’s delight, John sighed contentedly, tiredly maybe, and slumped against the wall and half against Paul, his entire body almost completely spent.

“Paul?” He whispered into the darkness before nuzzling his face into the top of Paul’s hair.

Paul daren’t speak a word yet – he had a feeling his own arousal and his own crazy, overworked feelings would get the better of his speech, and so he hummed in acknowledgment instead inbetween heavy breaths, still smiling softly. “Mm?”

He felt John grin against his temple, and an arm tighten around his neck in some sort of hug, a grip that told Paul not to move anywhere, because John wanted him right there and it felt as though he never wanted Paul to leave his side again.

“You know.”

Paul’s bright smile widened over his face and he used his clean hand to rub circles into the back of John’s neck; he let his eyes droop closed in the solace of peace and happiness and _love_.

“I know.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder to leave comments for me! They mean a lot and I really like reading through them because I'm a nosy bugger and I like to know what you're all thinking of my fics, particularly this one because I try to put a lot of effort into it!
> 
> So, y'know, criticisms, comments, maybe ideas you want to see? Up to you; leave it in the comments for me and I'll be happy no matter!

“Paul, love, would you like another burger?”

Across the yard, a slim woman with a bouncy bob of wavy red hair waved her arm wildly and excitedly at Paul; she stood over a still smoking barbecue, and Paul instinctively wanted to warn her to be just _a bit_ more careful, but he knew _this_ woman wouldn’t really care much for ‘careful’.

“No, thank you, Julia!” He yelled back, smiling politely from the deckchair he occupied at the back of the garden. A week of a British heat wave was enough warmth and sun for Paul to handle for a _long_ while, so he went out of his way that day to shift one of the chairs to the back of the garden, where a tree and a berry bush formed a shady shelter from the sun.

“You sure?! You better get the pick of the lot now, y’know. John’s on his way out; watch out for _that_ big bad wolf!”

Paul laughed at the middle-aged woman’s silly humour; she was a very funny lady, John’s mother was – Paul had even witnessed John’s Aunt _Mimi_ laughing at the hands of Julia on one occasion, and _that_ was something to marvel at, if anything at all.

Whenever Paul saw her, all he saw was John, though. Her humour, her laughter, her voice; her hair was slightly more vibrant than John’s, but you could still see John’s soft copper tone in there somewhere; her eyes were the only _major_ genetic difference – they were light blue, like delicate seashells; they made her look younger than what she was, full of life and youthful hope. Paul was grateful for the difference in eye colour, though; John must have gotten his eyes from his father, or maybe just from a more distant gene, but it didn’t matter if John’s father did or didn’t have those eyes; Paul knew he’d never meet the mystery man. So, to Paul, John’s eyes were just _John’s._

Precisely on cue, little Julia and Jackie sprinted out of the back door in their new matching blue and lilac summer dresses and down the steps onto the vibrant green grass; John followed soon after, leaping almost majestically over the plant pots after the two little girls.

Paul laughed from his deck-chair at the back of the garden as the two girls jumped behind him, shielding themselves from John.

Paul grinned up at John, who now groaned and rolled his eyes, slumping slightly in defeat. “That ain’t fair!” He complained as he crossed his arms and started pouting jokingly at Paul. “That’s cheating, that is.”

Paul raised an innocent eyebrow. “Why you lookin’ at me?” He asked. “I’ve not done anythin’; it’s Julia and Jackie. Good tactics, there; they know I ain’t planning on moving any time soon,” he smiled and tilted his head to the side to try to peer at the kids. “Well done, girls.”

“Shut up,” John groaned and sat on the grass, crossing his legs, in front of Paul. Julia and Jackie ran away, and John made one final attempt to grab Jackie with one outstretched arm, but to no use.

He sighed tiredly. Paul smiled. “You’re quite good with them, y’know,” he admitted once the two had escaped successfully. It was touching to see John so innocent and playful, so alarmingly different to how you see him at gigs and parties, and when he’s acting like the ‘big man’ at Ye’ Cracke with Stuart and Bill – it was like a glass of still water after a mad night of alcohol. A breath of fresh air.

John scoffed. “They’re little shits sometimes; that was a pleasant rarity. Remember, it’s not me that lives with them.”

“Come on, they’re your sisters! Have you never babysat them or anything?”

“Nah,” John droned, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “Ye’ honestly think old Twitchy would trust me with his two kids?”

Paul giggled and leaned forward. “Well _I_ would trust you with my _life_.”

John smirked and, batting his eyelashes, placed an earnest hand over his chest. “Oh, _stop it_ , you! _Really_?”

At this, Paul scoffed and leaned back in his lounger. “No, don’t be daft.”

“Oh.” John pouted. Paul smiled sarcastically.

“ _Oh, hello, boys! Fancy something to eat, then_?”

Julia’s ‘welcoming’ voice caused John to jump and spin his head around to discover the new arrivals; walking through the backdoor and into the garden came Pete, Colin, Nigel, a new fella’ who played piano called John Lowe, and George – John shot up and ran off to greet them, paying more attention to Pete than anybody else.

Not shifting from where he was sat, Paul smiled.

One year it had been, since him and John had first met at the church fête.

A lot more had happened than just him and John, though.

The Quarrymen suddenly lacked Pete Shotton and his trusty washboard in late 1957; he hated being the one on washboard and after a row, John ‘sacked him’, but Paul admired the fact that they had stayed so close – they had completely different lives now, and yet Pete was still John’s best friend in many ways and plenty of times Paul had thought of them as ‘thick as thieves’, which made him feel stupendously old, as it was a term his father and his aunts had used in the past, but it was the best description for them.

Rod left them eventually, and not at all too soon after, they sacked off Eric, too – Paul wasn’t too fussed but John was slightly more hesitant to. It was an easy done thing nevertheless – they ‘forgot’ to invite him to the following practice session at Paul’s house and that was all it took for Eric to understand that he was out.

Obviously, that left them short of a guitarist.

 _Obviously_ , something _had_ to be done about that.

Paul grinned fondly at the memory; one chilly night, all huddled on the top deck of a bus going around Woolton, George finally got his guitar out and played ‘Raunchy’, at Paul’s specific request, and Paul felt a new form of proudness towards his little friend – George played better than Paul ever could do and if Paul couldn’t play like that, then neither could John, making George a sort of extraordinaire on guitar to their standards.

It should have been a decision to make on instinct, because George played it exactly like the record sounded, but _no;_ John just _had_ to be difficult about it and leave Paul to praise George on his evident talents alone, rather than explain to George by himself what he was thinking and that was, of course, that George Harrison was still too young.

Paul, however, strived for it – he liked George as a guitar player and musician and, more significantly to him, as a close friend – he’d always been there, really, just in the background; the boy from the bus, forever faithful, the unsung hero.

It took a few short months and a few fill-ins but John inevitably cracked; George was in.

George must have thought that Paul had missed it, but of course he hadn’t – he spotted that _beam_ of a smile like it was a fucking lighthouse in a blanket of mist. It felt good to make a friend happy, _really happy,_ even if you weren’t supposed to know how happy he was at the time.

Now, _John and Paul_.

When Paul tries to dub a title to the relationship they had, he couldn’t do it with ease. They were best friends. They were two sides of the same coin. But they were _more_ than that, and they both knew it. It had gotten easier, after Wilson Hall – they’d kept at it. Paul went through about a week of paranoia over it, but sure enough, John turned up the following Saturday to watch the Shadows play on ‘ _Oh Boy!’_ on the telly at Paul’s house _,_ and John kissed him again and Paul knew that everything was okay then; he hadn’t made matters worse by pulling that ‘stunt’ down that alley.

It wasn’t necessarily a frequent, steady ‘relationship’, though – music came first. They spent more time writing than they did snogging; the writing was like a competition sometimes, a pleasant distraction. John would turn up with a crumpled up piece of paper with scruffy letters and scribbles on it and he’d be proud of it and wouldn’t initially want to change it, but every time Paul would make a suggestion, it was more often than not a good idea, and got left in. Sometimes it would be vice versa – John would make changes to Paul’s songs, in the lyrics or the music, or how it was sung.

Paul liked that. If they could share something, why not let it be songs?

Paul wrote ‘In Spite of All the Danger’ for a reason, though, and this one, he knew he couldn’t let John change, because that song was specifically _for_ John.

You wouldn’t give a person a present and then let them change it, so Paul made sure it remained exactly how it was – rather than sharing, he just wanted to _give_ for once.

Paul remembers playing the song to John for the first time; it was in the front parlour at his house, when Jim and Mike had gone out and it was raining outside and it was strangely cosy, honestly. Paul sat on the carpeted floor, guitar in his lap, whilst John watched from the sofa; he stared intently at Paul and, to make it worse, he had his glasses on, so he could see _every detail_ perfectly – for the first time in what seemed like a long while, Paul found himself blushing quite furiously and kept his eyes on the fret board and what his hands were doing instead of risking a look at John.

“ _In spite of all the danger, in spite of all that may be –_ then, uh, there’s a bit that goes like, ‘ _whoa-oh-oh-oh,’_ which is in back-up and, uh – _I’ll do anything for you, anything you want me to, if you’ll be true to me –_ uh, then there’s, uh, another sort of ‘whoa’ bit, y’know…”

John chuckled. “Paul,” Paul ignored him. “Paul.”

“Yeah?” He replied, slowly and cautiously, as he looked up from the guitar he held too tightly beneath his fingers.

“Just fuckin’ do it! You can leave the back-up out for now. Come on, I wanna hear it all! Why’re you so nervous, you plonker?” John laughed in confusion and gave Paul a funny look, which Paul avoided, and shrugged.

“Alright,” he agreed, deliberately not answering the question, and cleared his throat before he started again.

“ _In spite of all the danger, in spite of all that may be; I’ll do anything for you, anything you want me to, if you’ll be true to me…_ ” Paul paused in his singing to glance up at John to search for a reaction, but John was smiling quite placidly and Paul nodded his head back down to his guitar. “ _In spite of all the heartache, that you may cause me; I’ll do anything for you, anything you want me to, if you’ll be true to me…_ ”

He didn’t look up to check on John throughout the rest of the song; he finished it successfully and swallowed thickly, not meeting John’s eyes straight away.

John chuckled. “I liked it, I really did … but you could–”

“ _No_ ,” Paul held up a finger to shut John up and John looked sincerely shocked at Paul’s outburst, so Paul chuckled. “No, you’re not changing this one.”

“Oh,” John frowned and looked down briefly. “Uh, why not?”

“Because it’s for you,” Paul said calmly – much to his surprise, because he was _far_ from calm – and, standing up and sitting on the sofa next to John, he almost sunk into the comfort of the cushions. “I want you to sing it.”

“Well, okay…” John hesitated. “But, I’ve sung your songs before…”

“This one’s different,” Paul went on explaining, leaning forward to finally, daringly, look John in the eyes. “Listen to the words, John.” He took a shaky breath, realising that this could either turn out very embarrassing or… well, either way, it was going to be embarrassing. “It’s _for you._ It’s _about_ you – can’t you tell?”  

“None of yer’ songs are for me though,” John said slowly, turning slightly in his seat to face Paul. “Why all of a sudden?”

Paul shrugged. “Got an idea, wrote it down; why else?”

John smirked then, and Paul rolled his eyes, waiting for the embarrassing side of the reaction to hit him. “Do I give you ‘ _ideas_ ’ a lot then, Paulie?”

Paul stared at him and tried to appear not at all amused, but a smile crept onto his face despite him. “Shut up,” he droned, nudging John’s thigh and pushing him away gently.

John laughed and pulled Paul closer – Paul didn’t struggle. He slumped onto John’s shoulder and a strong arm snaked around him, holding him in place, close and tight. “I’ll sing the song, Paulie,” he said, rubbing Paul’s arm softly. “It’s a good-en; I like it.”

John kissed the top of Paul’s head as a seal of agreement, and Paul grinned up at him.

So, John did sing the song, like they’d planned.

And it was, surprisingly, at _his_ request that ‘In Spite of All the Danger’ would be recorded.

It may have just been because they needed another song for the B-side of their first _ever_ recording – the A-side was decided to be a cover of ‘That’ll Be the Day’, possibly John’s favourite Buddy Holly record at that time – but Paul clung onto the idea that maybe there _was_ a reason, maybe John liked Paul’s song a little bit more than what he let on, although Paul never actually called him out on it.

They only had 15 shillings on them – that was between John, Paul, George, John Lowe and Colin, which wasn’t actually enough for the session – it did ruin the air of professionalism to recording for the very first time. George didn’t care; George was just happy to be there, and John was going about it in an astoundingly mature, business-like manner – it eased Paul’s nerves a great deal, anyway, and the whole business was completed in barely over a quarter of an hour at the most, but they couldn’t take the completed work away until they’d paid the full fee.

They went their separate ways when they left the Kensington studio, and agreed to meet back at John’s a little later on.

That’s the reason Paul was sat in Julia’s back garden that afternoon, really. It was laughable, honestly, when John explained to them what his mother had in mind, because he had said it like it was something to be bashful about – it was only a little barbecue and, well, she _had_ just contributed most of the money they had to their first ever recording as a group so it was in her own right to celebrate for them.

It was nice though, really. All of them in one place, like a proper collective, a good _group_. And John was enjoying himself enough, evidently, as he laughed and chatted and messed around and was just being a proper _lad_. Every now and then he’d glance at Paul, who now possessed a small plastic cup filled with icy lager, and would smile at him, and Paul always smiled back; it was like they were reminding each other that the other was still there, and it touched Paul that it was always John who would look first, despite him being the one who was off and away, occupied, and Paul was the one sat at the back of the garden, hidden away in the shade.

But the other guests only stayed for a little over an hour, before they claimed they had to start heading off.

Even little Julia and Jackie were getting dozy by then; Bobby came in from work at around six in the afternoon with a sigh to find his two daughters dozing into a kip on the sofa, and begrudgingly carried them both up to their beds. John and Paul didn’t hesitate to jump up and snatch their seats on the sofa in the lounge.

They sat in silence for quite a while; mostly because John was shattered out of his mind and Paul was gradually catching up to him, resorting to blinking furiously in order to keep himself awake.

“Do you boys want anything from the shops? They’re closing soon and your George drank all the lemonade,” Julia chuckled as she poked her petite frame through the small doorway.

“Nah,” John answered for the both of them, smiling lazily at his mother.

“No, thank you,” Paul added on anyway, and Julia smiled softly before she left the room with a feminine swiftness that reminded Paul of the angelic movements of his own mother, who had carried on her perfectionism as a nurse onto such basic things like just _walking;_ Paul misses her when he thinks of the little things like that the most. Other times, she would hardly cross his mind – not necessarily forgotten, but never completely _there_ in his thoughts.

The _second_ the bolt on the front door was locked, John was on Paul like a damn _leach_.

Paul chuckled as John groaned long and loud and tiredly fell to the side to lean practically his whole body over Paul’s, nuzzling into Paul’s shoulder like some sort of furry, cuddly creature.

“Gerr’off me, you big daft git,” Paul whined, struggling to push John off him. “Bobby’s only kipping upstairs; if he finds you like this he’ll have you one.”

“Not even the blitz could wake him up, Macca,” John sighed down Paul’s neck and Paul shivered visibly, making John giggle in reply and nuzzle his nose against Paul’s cheek. “Relax, will you? I’m _shattered_.”

Paul chuckled into the top of John’s head, breathing in the scent of his hair as he did so. “What, so you can’t be shattered elsewhere? Like, on a cushion, maybe?”

“You _are_ a cushion,” John mumbled.

“Yeah, and you’re a fuckin’ softie. C’mon, shift it, will ya’? Yer’ heavy,” Paul sighed exasperatedly and nudged John with his shoulder, with quite a lot of force, he realised, and felt briefly bad about, but it didn’t do much harm, so he just did it again, grinning cheekily, just trying to drive John up the wall now rather than get him to move.

“Yeah? Well, then, yer’ a queer, so shut up and let me be.”

“No, I’m not,” Paul said, frowning. The statement hit him a lot harder than it was probably supposed to; John had never called _him_ that before; he’d heard him call Wallogs queer countless times, even throwing digs at _Pete_ occasionally, but never Paul himself, and never Paul to him; it was just some sort of unspoken rule between them. “I’m not.”

It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, and he wasn’t supposed to say it the way he did, like he had to defend his damn rights against John, but it did turn out exactly like that and John’s entire body seemed to stiffen into marble, and Paul swallowed thickly, bracing himself for whatever crazy reaction was due to be fired his way; a reaction he really hadn’t been expecting.

“Course you’re not,” John said, slowly lifting himself off Paul. “ _No, never –_ lovely Paulie McCartney a filthy little _faggot_? No, not in a million _fucking years._ ”

Paul sat himself up and tried to ignore how frighteningly fast his heart was pounding against his ribs, threatening to leap out and fly away, away from John and away from the entire situation, but he felt his knees going weak and his guts churning nervously.

“John, look–”

“And, _fuckin’ hell –_ the little prince fuckin’ _charming_ of Allerton, fuckin’ about with that twat Lennon, eh? Oh, he’s _bent_ , isn’t he, Paul? Fucking must be, but not _you_. Yer’ too fucking good for the likes of him, _aren’t you_?”

John flew himself up and off the sofa with leopard-like speed, and Paul jumped physically and clenched his hand around the arm of the couch, swallowing thickly and trying to stay quiet for long enough for the storm to blow over, for John to calm down and break down his _stupid defensive barrier_ that he would build up like that, like everybody was out to get him, but John stayed silent, stayed standing, lingering over Paul like a falcon preparing for slaughter, and Paul couldn’t stay shut up any longer, because he had no excuse to.

“But we’re not,” he snapped out, cringing at how broken and childishly oblivious his voice sounded aloud. “We’re _not;_ you– you’ve got Thelma at the moment, and I’ve– _I’ve_ had a few birds recently too, and, we’re _not queer_ , so … so what’s your _fucking_ problem?”

The last question came out in a bark of defence that shocked Paul himself – what scared him, really, was that he sounded _exactly_ like John as he said it, _spat_ the question out like the words contained venom, and although he told himself to calm down, to take the high-ground and calm _the fuck_ down,he couldn’t – this was a battle now, one of the sort of battles that he had acknowledged and warned himself about at that first group practice that took place almost a full year ago now, and he couldn’t dare lose it, not yet.

“Right now, Paul, you’re my fucking problem,” John announced, snarling downwards at Paul, his eyes vividly dangerous without the lenses of his glasses to hide them with the filthiness of them that John would let them get to. “You’re too fucking good for _everybody,_ aren’t you? Well, to be honest with you, Princess, you’re not. You’re fucking _not._ ”

“I never said that,” Paul snapped back, frowning deeply. “I never fucking said that, John! You’re just going about listening to what Pete and _your lot_ have to say about me, but you just – you’re just going on about this to have at me now, ‘cause you’re tired and I’ve damaged yer’ fuckin’ ego somehow, and I’m not havin’ it,” suddenly, a strange calmness flew through Paul, and all he wanted to do was go home – go home and think to himself, but following the rush of need for tranquillity came sorrow, and then he found, with a twinge of horror, that what he really wanted to do, was cry. “M’ not havin’ it.”

With a sigh, Paul heaved himself up off the couch and pushed his way past John, mumbling “ _not having it,”_ beneath his breath and running a hand over his face, and then through his greased up hair, trying to distract himself from the sudden guilt and pain and sadness he inexplicably felt – inexplicable because he _knew_ he hadn’t been wrong in what he had said – and yet he _still_ felt guilty? Still felt _affection_ towards the _out of order_ John Lennon, and still just wanted to crumble down.

“Where are _you_ going?!” John yelled as Paul forced the front door open and stormed out, digging his hands down to the bottom of his tightly tailored jeans and missing out on stopping at the bus stop he had managed to memorise the way towards from Julia’s house.

John didn’t shout after him again, though.

Instead, the alarming _bang_ of the front door of the house was the closing siren of finality, and Paul slowed his pace, and let himself _relax_.

***

To relax was his aim.

 _To relax_ proved too much to ask for.

Paul couldn’t bring himself to go back home – there wasn’t anything for him there other than a guitar, a piano and a bed to sleep in. His dad and Mike, well, they weren’t doing him many favours recently – all his dad lived to do was give him grief about his stupid choices in life, how he’s disregarding his GCE’s too much and spending too much time with ‘ _that Lennon_.’

So instead of heading homewards, he found himself hidden under a tree on the golf course near, he regretfully realised, John’s home at Mendips with his aunt Mimi.

He didn’t even think, though, when he was sat there – it was like a strange form of hypnosis, meditation, _something_ strange and exotic – he sat there and smoked every cigarette he had on him, not moving an inch other than to light, smoke, stub out, and light up again, before simply repeating the whole process.

It started raining at some point – he remembers because some of the droplets from the leaves of the tree fell on his face, agitating him and briefly holding his attention, bringing him back to reality.

And then, sure enough, he ran out of cigarettes.

The cycle was broken and thoughts were suddenly an unstoppable force, invading Paul’s bruised mind in an armada of confusion and hurt.

Confusion, because – well, y’know – _queer_? He couldn’t be a queer; couldn’t admit to it because it just – he – it’s not _right._ There’s a _reason_ it’s _illegal_ , surely; a reason he’s been warned about people _like that_ all his life; a r _eason,_ of course, why kids in high school and college tease each other about being filthy fags, doing the dirty with other blokes, _laugh_ about it – a reason as to why, if you call a girl a ‘dirty dyke,’ she cries her eyes out and you’ll find her dad or brothers ranting and raging that _his_ child or _his_ sister _dare_ be considered as that – that … _thing._

And it was all very well denying it to the public – nobody would find out how Paul would think of John, the things him and John would _do_ sometimes, like the things he daydreams about in school and _everywhere,_ the things he longs for _every day._

That was fine; what nobody knew couldn’t hurt them.

What _scared_ him, _really scared the_ shit _out of him,_ was that even _John_ had given up on Paul’s make-believe easiness, his oblivious simplicity; John has been led to realise _alone_ that what they’re doing together is wrong and that it isn’t a statement – it isn’t a big bold thing to be _proud_ of. What they were doing was queer, and for some reason, for some unknown and unspoken reason that nobody would ever fully understand but many believed _anyway_ , that was _not_ okay.

And Paul hated how he _couldn’t stop what he was doing._

John was the only bloke he’d ever looked at like this – _ever._ Does that make him gay? Does that, what is it, _medically label_ him as a homosexual? An invalid?

Sat on the still slightly damp grass on the golf course under a tree, Paul realised with a daunting humiliation that his hands were shaking, his body trembling as he nibbled his finger nails anxiously and tried to ignore his thoughts, his oppressive, terrifying mentalities.

He had to get home – it was dark. When the _hell_ did it get _dark_?

He sighed a shaky breath, _finally_ daring himself to stand up and walk away from his hiding place.

But then he was running.

He ran despite his tremulous body, ran to where he knew he had to be, despite _everything –_ he ran _home_.

For some reason, it took him a while to realise that the home he was running to was not 20 Forthlin Road – not where his old dad and his ‘little’ brother would be faithfully there for him, like they always were, whether he needed them to be or not.

His weary, slightly numb legs carried him in the opposite direction – through a passage and down a pavement and suddenly in the dim night he saw a thick cloud of smoke and a glimmer of burning ash coming from the smaller bedroom window at the front of a house called Mendips, saw a figure jump up onto the ledge to lean further out of the window, accidentally dropping the cig to the ground below as he did so, and Paul _kept on running,_ kept on running to the shadow of John.

_His John._

“Paul?” He hissed, peering down below him. “Jesus – why’re you out? It’s late, you fuckin’ muppet – get home!”

Only as he stopped on the grass in the front garden did Paul realise how out of breath he was, and he bent down, kneeling on the grass with his face in his hands and panted harshly into his palm, embarrassingly trying to find the breath in him to speak.

“Come down,” he pleaded, his voice miserable as he looked up at John, looked up and couldn’t see his face and his heart clenched in his chest. “Johnny, come down for me, please; need to–” he paused, taking in a harsh, much needed breath. “Need to see you now, John – I _really_ –”

John was already gone, the familiar silhouette of his frame disappearing from the window, and Paul crippled forward, not able to hold himself up properly – the misery he felt was unbearable and yet unexplainable. _Is this it?_ He thought. _Is this my surrender?_ But, surrender to _what?_ Surrender to John? Surrender to – no, it’s not… it isn’t _just_ lust, it isn’t John as a _physical_ being – it’s _more_ , it’s more than what he’s used to and _that’s_ why he’s scared, why he feels the prickle of a tear trace down his cheek and as he notices a pair of warm, strong hands jerking him up and onto his uncertain, wavering feet.

He can’t hear anything – he claims he needs to see John, and John’s _there –_ John’s talking to him and holding him, but Paul feels like he’s compressed and blanketed under water, his ears filled, muffling everything John says, his sight blurred harshly by waves and imaginary ripples, and–

“I love you, Paul – Paul, _Paul_ – Macca, for fucks sake, will you just fucking _look at me_?”

The first breath – the first breath as Paul leaps out of the water and into the atmosphere – he takes a breath _exactly_ as that is the case, like it’s the first one he’s taken in years, as John’s words hit him like a _bullet_.

Paul sniffled and his whole body trembled ferociously as he finally managed to blink the ever flowing tears out of his eyes, only to feel them roll down his cheeks, wetting his face further. John held onto him tightly holding him upright like a scaffolding, his palms sticking to the soft fabric of Paul’s jacket. Their faces were close and Paul was soothed by the homely feeling of John’s gaze on him, the strong hands, the smell of John’s preferred cigarettes mixed with the warm smell of John’s body and the underlying scent of Mimi’s well-kept home. It invited him in; made him want to cave forward and bury his face in John’s shoulder, just be taken away from the world completely in the safety and sanctuary of John’s arms, John’s _heart,_ but Paul was too weak to move against John’s firm grip, and so he stared helplessly at him, gasping through little sobs as he waited for John to proceed speaking, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to do so himself.

“There,” John purred, bringing one hand up to stroke Paul’s face softly with the calloused tip of his thumb. “Look at yer’ eyes, Macca – _fucking beautiful_. Fucking beautiful boy, you are. Yer’ stunning, Paul, you’re fucking gorgeous…” the rest of John’s words were lost as he forced his lips against Paul’s, and Paul was just about able to kiss back, although he knew it wasn’t his _best_ kissing – it was messy and wet and he could taste the saltiness of his own tears on John’s lips, and he was trembling too much as it was to make it enthusiastic on his part, but he cherished the feeling anyway – fell head over heels for the feeling of John’s skilful tongue gliding softly over his bottom lip; John’s needy, quick pecks of kisses that he would give inbetween the longer lasting, more _heated_ ones; the way the hand that was once caressing his damp cheek had glided slowly towards the back of Paul’s head, combing through the black strands comfortingly, tracing circles into the top of the back of his neck – it was _breath-taking_ , if Paul’s merciless sobbing hadn’t already contributed to the lack of breath anyway.

Paul found his strength, found it because John built him up, made him stronger just by _being,_ and he lifted his shaking hands up to rest on John’s warm neck, the cold tips of his fingers dancing in as rhythmic patterns as he could manage as they trembled, and Paul got lost in the alternate state of consciousness that kissing John took him to, just like the last times, similar to the labyrinth of his eyes. In moving his arms away, he gave John the room to place his hands on Paul’s waist, gripping him tightly, digging his fingers into his jacket and material of his shirt, using the clothes as handles to tug Paul even closer to him, their chests – hot through their tight shirts – pressed as close together as was humanely possible, and Paul felt his knees give in, felt himself fall forward slightly and he just let John hold him, securely, and with the slight fall, he let out quiet moan into John’s mouth, almost choking on an upcoming sob, and John just held him tightly around his waist, kissing him tenderly now, rather than powerfully and heartfelt.

“ _I’ve got you_ , Paul,” he whispered, his breathing uneven as he steadied his lover from swaying. “I’ve got you, baby, s’okay; m’ here – m’ here, baby.”

“ _Johnny,_ ” Paul tried to say, but his voice cracked and he stared at John’s flawless face, his bottom lip trembling, trying to make John _see_ what he wanted to say.

John’s hand came up to the back of Paul’s head again and he pressed Paul’s face into the side of his neck, stroking the shimmering raven hair at the back of Paul’s head and allowing him to cry into his shoulder as _he_ stood still, tall and strong, sheltering Paul away from the rest of the world, which was exactly what Paul needed in that moment.

“Shhh,” John started, soothingly, pressing a feather-light kiss to the top of Paul’s ear. “Ye’ don’t have to talk, love – ye’ don’t have to say anything. I know, baby. I already know.”

 _I love you,_ Paul thought over and over, hoping that if he thought it enough then maybe it would spill out of his useless, blubbering mouth, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. _I love you. I fucking love you, Johnny – my Johnny, I love you._

***

John’s bedroom looked strange in the dark – it looked like a different place to the usual small, entirely lit up room where you could see everything around you perfectly, so different as to when Paul would turn up some days to find John lay on his small bed, staring up at the ceiling wistfully, hazy eyes and dreamy smiles and soft laughter that floated between them like a melody before they’d even get to writing their songs.

It doesn’t matter, though – doesn’t matter where Paul goes or where John leads him, so long as John is _there,_ with him, because that’s when everything turns alright.

Mimi’s asleep already, but John locks his bedroom door anyway and moves swiftly over to Paul, who’s sat on the bed with his legs crossed, his gaze following John everywhere he moves, as he closes his window and draws the curtains and then moves to sit right beside Paul.

“I’m sorry…” John whispered directly into Paul’s ear, moving a hand up Paul’s back to fiddle with the short hairs at the top of his neck, sending shivers through Paul’s whole body. “I’m so sorry, Macca – what I said earlier, I didn’t mean to – y’know what I’m like, don’t you?”

Paul exhaled softly and closed his eyes, leaning his head to the side and towards John. “It’s okay,” Paul admitted, giving in, wanting to hear no more of it but simultaneously wanting to make sure that _everything_ is cleared up.

John sighed down his neck, his nose gently brushing against Paul’s cheek. “You and me… I’ll take you away, ya’ know,” Paul chuckled quietly, interrupting John briefly, but John just grinned like an excited little boy and continued. “I dunno’ what you’re laughing at; I’m dead serious. Scotland, maybe? I’ll take you away with me to Scotland, then. Or Wales? Wherever, Paul, we’ll just… it’ll be like running away together,” John chuckled, and the infectiousness of it made Paul copy his action. “I’ll take you away from everything, I will, I promise. I promise you.”

Paul grinned. “Scotland… seems nice,” he agreed, shrugging his shoulder softly, nudging John slightly.

“Scotland it is, then,” he beamed, and then Paul felt him gently pushing him down onto the bed, and he let him, let John take control over Paul’s body, and he looked up at him when his head hit the softness of John’s pillow, and John lingered over him, scooting a leg up between Paul’s thighs. “We could stay there forever, if you wanted to, you know. Not in a very big place, though – somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where the fairy-tales happen, and–”

“I love you, John.”

John stopped talking and looked upwards, catching Paul’s eyes properly, and Paul shuddered at the stare John wore; it was as though John went through a complete spectrum of different feelings in a split second; doubt, disbelief, realisation, reassurance, relief. All through _one_ look.

John leaned down and kissed Paul firmly on the lips, and Paul kissed him back with just as must force, leaning up into him like they couldn’t possibly _begin_ to get close enough; John shifted so that his body was leaning on top of Paul’s with just enough pressure, not to lie on him, just to be brushing against him, to _feel_ each other.

John broke away from the kiss first. “What d’you want?” He asked urgently, suddenly lifting himself up, spreading Paul’s still jean clad legs apart and kneeling inbetween them; he pushed Paul’s t-shirt up to reveal his stomach, and Paul shivered as John pecked kisses over his skin; from the waist band of his tight jeans, up to his belly-button, then around, nearing his hips and his waist, sucking slightly on the softer parts of skin where baby-fat still clung to Paul’s body, and then John moved further downwards, brushing one single finger over Paul’s crotch, tracing the length of his cock with teasing slowness, and Paul let out a heavy breath, reaching his hand down to stroke through John’s hair. “I’ll do anything for you, Paulie,” John whispered, his voice low and husky as he traced the tip of his nose over the hardening shape of Paul, nuzzling the warmth slightly. “Anything ye’ want, I’ll give to you – I _swear_ – I wanna’ _prove_ –”

“ _Shh_ , Johnny,” Paul hushed, stroking through John’s slightly curled hair. “Ye’ve got nothing to ‘prove’ to me, you sod,” he chuckled, though his breath hitched noticeably as John repeated his previous actions with the tips of his fingers. “J-John, you don’t have to…”

“I want to,” John snapped, seemingly without pause for thought. Without warning, he stretched back up to meet Paul’s lips with his own, shutting them both up for a moment.

Paul accepted the kiss gratefully – he instinctively let his hands grip John’s waist and before Paul could stop him, John was pulling himself upwards and straddling over Paul’s hips, pinning him where he was – in turn, Paul couldn’t even _try_ to resist this, these moments with John where they carelessly spoil themselves – he pushed his hands down to John’s hip bones, making sure he held them tightly, keeping John in place, and–

Oh, _God_ , the groan that came out of John’s mouth as Paul grinded, _hard,_ upwards into him, the fabrics of Paul’s jeans and John’s briefs the only thing separating their skin, but there was no time for undressing now – from what Paul could feel, John was a _lot_ further gone than he was _already_ , and what they needed was the full three-sixty of the other, not teasing foreplay; the ecstasy of a release that they _both_ needed _had_ to come fast.

So as John whimpered in pleasure, and let his head lull back, his mouth dropping open as he breathed heavily, Paul grinded up again, clenching his eyes closed and biting his lip now to make sure that he didn’t make any noises as he concentrated, and slowly he slid one hand from John’s hip down to the large bulge poking into Paul’s denim clad crotch, and groped it through John’s underwear, wrapping his long fingers around the shape of John’s cock, stroking it slowly as he did so, and he kept at it for a while, urging John closer with each passing second and grinding himself slowly into the shape of John’s arse.

Eventually, Paul was too aroused himself to remain focused on just John, and he moved in the time it would take to blink; John couldn’t help but gasp and then moan in surprise and then unexpected pleasure as Paul pulled John down to him, kissing him harshly on the lips and then slid both of his hands to grip John’s firm arse cheeks tightly, forcing John to slide himself over Paul’s hardness as Paul bucked his hips upwards frantically now – he repeated the action at a quick pace, repeatedly driving their lower halves together in quick thrusts, Paul moving faster than his body could really control, and he could feel his orgasm burning and building in the pit of his stomach, and _oh God,_ just a _bit_ more, a bit faster, oh _fuck,_ oh _John_ …

Suddenly, it was John who made the final move to push Paul over his limits, by pressing himself down onto Paul in one hard, swift grind, groaning low and deep in his throat as he did so.

Paul could feel John watching him as he came into his jeans, and Paul had to bite down painfully hard on his bottom lip to shut himself up but despite his efforts, a long, uneven whimper of sheer pleasure escaped his mouth, and he didn’t want it to be over, so he found himself continuing to dry hump John’s arse senseless of himself, riding out his orgasm until he knew it had to be over.

Just as Paul started to slow down, holding himself back, John forced himself away from Paul and arched his back backwards, and suddenly there was a vague damp warmth through John’s white briefs, pressing against Paul’s stomach, and Paul found himself licking his lips as John’s mouth fell open as his own orgasm followed barely minutes after Paul’s.

“Oh, _fuck, yes_...” Paul heard him whisper in shallow breaths, and Paul grinned crookedly up at his lover, his Johnny, and he realised that all the worries and the anxieties and the fears were _so worth it,_ if it leads him closer to what he wants, what he needs, and he knows that he _lives_ to see John like that, to see him as nobody else could see him, sat on Paul like a _bird,_ moaning _Paul’s_ name as he falls back down and presses kisses over Paul’s face, and it’s entirely dirty and sexy, but it’s also magical and somewhat beautiful at the same time.

A few minutes later, when John’s almost cradled at Paul’s side, leaning half on top of him due to the lack of space, Paul now comfortable with his jeans off, John chuckles breathily and warm into the side of Paul’s face, and when Paul raises a curious eyebrow in John’s way, John grins at him.

“So…” he whispered, excitement evident and slightly unnatural in his exhausted voice. “Let’s talk about Scotland.”

***

“Fancy a bit of the radio, then?”

“Whatever. Go on then.”

“Specific channels, my dear?”

“Nah, stick what ya’ like on.”

“’Kay.”

John shrugged from where he was, crouched down in front of the radio, fiddling with the tuner with his eyes squinted as he concentrated intensely on his decision.

Paul sighed from where he was and leaned back on the couch, running his slender fingers through his hair out of frustration.

The two of them had been working on a new song for _hours –_ it was odd, writing because you were _pushing_ yourself to rather than doing it just because you _wanted_ to. And John was, frankly, doing Paul’s head in. Being all laid back and doolally, granted _he’d_ been the one to get the right chords for it first and was now feeling like the rest could be left to Paul, and would be there for him to mindlessly criticise.

They weren’t writing for any reason other than boredom, but boredom went too far when Paul started to feel like tearing his hair out of his skull as if to make more room for some good ideas; _an unfinished song wouldn’t be worth jackshit_ , he reminded himself, and groaned into his hands.

From the little radio beside the settee, the crackling sounds got louder and louder until they resembled a soft, easy melody, one Paul recognised quite well from John dragging him to the record shop by the docks and forcing him into a booth that was playing Buddy Holly’s new record (new in February, anyway).

Paul didn’t move an inch as the song came into full notion, though he heard John humming along to it softly, felt the air of the room shift slightly as he stood back up from his crouching position at the side of the sofa.

 _“Every day, it’s a-getting closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster…”_ John sang along, his voice unusually soft and delicate in juxtaposition to his usual excited screams and shouts of his Little Richard and Chuck Berry covers.

Paul still didn’t move, though – despite granting John permission to use the radio, Paul remained furious with himself for failing to come up with a good idea. All he needed was some damn _words,_ for Christ’s sake.

Paul was, quite embarrassingly, startled when he felt John’s strong fingers close tight around his wrist, and he lowered his other hand from his face as John tugged on the one he already had hold of.

Paul stared up at him quizzically, his mouth twisting into a questioning sort of snarl, but his eyes staring up at John like a curious little boy.

“C’mon,” he urged, tugging Paul’s wrist with a bit more force before finding his other one and tugging on them both, evidently determined to get Paul up and off the sofa. “C’mon, Paulie – _love like yours will, surely come my way…”_

“What – you want me to dance or somethin’?”

“Yeah,” John admitted frankly, shooting Paul a wide, goofy, slightly sarcastic and teasing smile. “Yeah, I do, actually. C’mon, _up._ ”

Paul frowned and laughed rather darkly, rolling his head to the side in a pathetic attempt to make John realise that he _really_ wasn’t in the mood for it. “Dance with _you_?” He asked, scoffing slightly. “You can’t dance to save yer’ life!”

“Teach me, then,” John challenged, smirking cheekily and yanking Paul right up into his arms, and Paul collided with him with a rather petty _yelp._

Without consent, John looped his arms tightly around Paul’s waist, trapping him from moving away and almost lifting him off his feet as he forcefully swayed him from side to side, burying his face in the side of Paul’s neck as Paul shoved his hands against John’s chest to try and break away; but, he realised with an exasperated sigh, it would be to no use. John had him right where he wanted him, and Paul just rested his hands over John’s shoulders softly and lazily, rolling his eyes and moving his head back to make John look at him.

When John did look up, his face lit up into an excited and pleased looking grin, and Paul couldn’t prevent a soft chuckle from escaping him. _Twat,_ Paul thought, surrendering completely to John’s messy, uncoordinated steps. _Has me doing anything he wants me to, he does._

“There ye’ go, Scrooge! Look at ye’, dancin’ away. Anyone would think you were – my goodness, _dare I say it_ – _happy!?_ ”

Paul sighed and looked down at his hands placed on John’s chest. “Shut up, ya’ git,” he said. “Yer’ forcing me against my will. I’m fairly certain I could sue you for this.”

“Ah, shut it, Macca; ya’ _love it_.”

Without warning, John smirked wildly and dipped forward, bending Paul backwards, just enough so that he didn’t hurt his back or whack his head off anything, which wouldn’t surprise Paul at all if it _did_ happen, granted it was _John_ who was leading the whole routine.

John held him there for a while and then removed one hand from the small of Paul’s back and slowly lifted Paul’s hand off his own chest, entwining their fingers and kissing Paul’s knuckles softly before moving their arms out slightly, evidently trying to make their little dance number look like a _proper_ one, which made Paul laugh softly, his previous horrendous mood almost entirely forgotten.

With a final surrendering sigh, Paul laughed properly and dipped his head back too, closing his eyes and pressing his lips together to stifle a fit of giggles.

Suddenly, Paul felt John’s lips over his throat, kissing the skin softly, trailing up his neck until he was licking and nipping the curve of his chin, making Paul let out a long breath through his nose that shook slightly, as if he was slowly letting out the laughter that was building up within him.

With a jerk, John yanked Paul upright and Paul fell into his arms once again, laughing as John kissed his mouth and Paul struggled to keep it shut long enough to kiss John back, grinning into it as he wrapped his arms tightly around John’s neck and pushed their hips together, both of John’s hands now gripping onto Paul’s hipbones.

“Love _you,_ ” Paul whispered, smiling dazedly at John, like John’s lips were his alcohol and Paul was completely drunk on him.

John chuckled at him, making Paul’s heart swell in his chest with overwhelming happiness made that much _more_ powerful due to the unexpected change of moods that Paul had undergone.

Buddy Holly’s hums of ‘ _A-hey, a-hey, hey’_ filled the silence as Paul stared at John and John watched Paul with amusement, waiting for the final line of the song.

“ _Love like yours will, surely come my way,”_ he whispered rather than sang, and pressed one more firm kiss to Paul’s lips.

“Love you, too,” John whispered back, and then let go of Paul, backing away slowly, leaving him stood where was, still swaying slightly on his feet.

“W-What about the song?” Paul inquired worriedly, looking genuinely concerned for a moment and then grinning as John rolled his eyes dramatically.

“ _Scrap_ the damn song! We don’t need it!” John yelled, throwing his arms up into the air carelessly. “Just relax, babe; yer’ making a fuss over noth–”

Interrupting John came a chorus of very hard, very harsh and urgent knocks – more _punches_ than knocks, really – on the front door, and John frowned, mumbling ‘ _rude,’_ beneath his breath.

Paul chuckled. “Mike!” He yelled, only just remembering that his brother was in the house at all. “Get the door for us, will ye’?!”

There was a loud groan of annoyance from the kitchen as Mike made his way down the hall to the front door, and Paul sighed happily at John.

“You’re dead daft, you, you know,” he stated factually, jabbing John harshly in the chest with his fingers.

“Oh, give over,” John retorted, smirking and playfully swatting his hand over Paul’s head. “You sound _just_ like Mimi, and it’s not like I don’t get enough of _her_ or anythin’.”

Paul grinned knowingly and dived his arm down, jabbing John’s side now, making John flinch and jump to the side, and Paul laughed heartily.

John opened his mouth to say something but before a sound barely escaped his mouth, Mike opened the living room door.

“J-John,” he started, and Paul frowned intently at his younger brother. His face was ghostly pale, his eyes dark and the hand he had on the doorknob quaking slightly. “It’s, uh – the door, it’s for you.”

“Oh,” John said, sounding genuinely surprised and glancing at Paul with an equally confused frown, and Paul shrugged at him, answering a silent question. “’Kay, then.”

As John walked out of the room, Mike slid forward and slowly closed the living room door, looking up at Paul with wide, shocked eyes.

“What is it, Mikey?” Paul asked, hands on his hips, looking slightly concerned for his brother, but more confused than anything. “What’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Mike stared and fumbled over his words carefully. “It – it’s his mum, Paul.”

Paul quirked a confused eyebrow. At this rate, he was getting nowhere. “Julia?” He asked. “Julia doesn’t know the way here, I don’t think. Are you sure it’s his _mum_ and not Mimi?”

“ _No_ , Paul, I meant–”

Interrupting Mike came a loud _bang_ that shook through the whole house like shock waves of on Earthquake, and Paul’s first instinct was of fear, not recognising the sound straight away as the front door closing, and he jumped forward, leapt past his brother to try and get to John, to see what was going on, why he’d left him behind and just ran out into the pouring rain that had not long started – but then Mike’s arm was around him, holding him where he was, not letting him move, and Paul growled at his sibling, trying to get him off.

“Paul, _listen to me_ ,” he demanded, and Paul wanted to ignore him and push past him, pursue his love, but something in the way Mike had said it, spoke it like he really _meant_ it, told Paul that he had to hear it.

Finally, Paul eased up, staring at his brother blankly.

“It’s his mum, Paul. She’s dead.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually very nervous about this one, and I've no idea why. Just doesn't seem... oh, I don't know, I'm just a bit unsure of it - self-conscious, or something.  
> Nevertheless, thank you for reading this far at all! It's great that many of you are still here, ehehe.

Paul didn’t go to the funeral.

He hadn’t even contacted John since the day that Julia was hit by a car driven by an off-duty policeman travelling down Menlove Avenue, almost directly outside Mendips. She died on impact.

People kept on pushing Paul to call up; at least _call,_ but he just couldn’t do it. It all seemed to be happening too soon and too fast for him to keep up with, which he knew was a pathetic excuse, but it worked enough for him, for a while.

It came to the day of the funeral and the plan was to go down afterwards and see John for a pint; all of them – the lads from the Art school, John’s mates from Ye’ Cracke, the Quarrymen, some _ex_ Quarrymen, like Pete… but Paul couldn’t find it in him to go. John wouldn’t be _good,_ he could tell. He’d get drunk and do things he would wake to regret and Paul wouldn’t be able to stop it, because when John wants to be, he can be lethal and reckless and often, thoughtless.

But one thing Paul _could_ do was, rather daringly, check up on John via source he knew would be honest about it.

That is to say, Aunt Mimi.

It certainly wasn’t a task for one to take lightly. Paul had to take a minute to plan out what he thought would be said and whatever various scenarios _could_ have taken place as he slowly rolled his bike out through the ginnel from the back garden and out onto the street before heading towards the golf course which was, decidedly, the quickest route to Mendips from Forthlin Road.

He tried not to think much as he rode to Mendips; he was anxious to talk to Mimi generally anyway, but today it was… hell, it was _risky._

Paul found himself outside Mendips moments after the last streak of light disappeared beyond the horizon; it was more likely for John to have left the house the later it got, anyway, so Paul wasn’t mithered by the darkening skies.

He suddenly realised that he was very nervous to be doing what he was planning to do – pester Mimi when he could probably just go out and find John for himself, check up on him face-to-face rather than do the admittedly more _cowardly_ thing and go and ask his auntie how he was feeling, like she had a damn subscription to all of his thoughts or feelings. Ridiculous, obviously.

The porch door opened up so fast that Paul had barely applied the second knock, and there before him – stern, scowling and dressed in black – was John’s aunt Mimi, staring at him down her nose.

“Blimey,” Paul started, taken aback and forgetting any plans of conversation he had previously thought up. “That was quick.”

“I saw you through the window before you knocked,” Mimi explained, her words darting out of her mouth quickly and a sigh following them as if Paul should have known without her telling him. “What do you want? John’s gone out.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I know he has,” Paul went on, gulping down his nerves. “I was actually wondering if I could just, uh, have a quick word with you, y’know…”

Paul looked up at Mimi and expected her to send him off, but after a minute she sighed and wiped her hand over her face. “I suppose so, yes,” she said. “You’d better put your bicycle by John’s around the back. You know how these children can be – they’ll have that bike of yours if they want it, and I shan’t be broken into.”

Paul nodded his head and shuffled his bike to the side gate. “Hurry up, now,” Mimi chimed after him, her arms folded as she leaned against the glass window in the porch. “I won’t be waiting around for you all night, McCartney.”

 

It always amused Paul how Mendips had a morning-room. _How many houses do you find with one of those in them these days in Liverpool, hey?_ It’s just an extra lounge! The name was rather inaccurate though, Paul thought, because the sky was getting truly dark outside when he stood in there, Mimi watching him, a lit fag in hand, with a sour look on her face.

She sighed out a thick cloud of smoke and leaned forward from her arm chair by the window to stub out the cigarette in an ash-tray on the side-table.

“You said you wanted a ‘quick word’,” she stated factually as she leaned back into her seat. “And yet thus far you haven’t uttered one, nor has this been a quick visit at all. You seem incapable of keeping to even _short_ -term promises, Mr McCartney – I’d sort that out, if I were you.”

“Oh – s-sorry,” he was quick to stutter out. “Sorry.”

“What do you want, Paul?” She asked seriously, and Paul couldn’t help but notice that her voice sounded close to exhausted.

“I just… wanted to check up on him – on John,” he explained, swallowing thickly. “See how he’s doing.”

Mimi stiffened in her seat and grinded her teeth loudly.

“Perhaps, Paul, it would be considerably more useful for you to go to _him_ in order to find these things out rather than come to _me._ I may be his Aunt, but I am _not_ his conscience.”

“No, look, I know, I just–”

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” Mimi went on, folding her arms, and Paul was quick to shut up. “But today was Julia’s funeral.”

“I know, but–”

“John sat through it all, you know,” Mimi went on, disregarding Paul’s attempts at talking entirely. “Well, in some sense. He was distraught, as you may be capable of imagining. Went through the service with his head on my lap – can you do that, hm? Imagine your front-man _heartbroken_ by his mother’s death? Somewhat unthinkable, isn’t it? Weakness?”

This time, Paul didn’t try to speak.

“Paul McCartney,” Mimi went on, standing up and walking towards him, tall and slim with glaring eyes and a venomous lip to her. “I think _you,_ of _all_ people, know _full well_ just ‘how he’s doing.’ Wouldn't you say so?”

There was a silence that filled the room that made Paul suddenly nauseous as Mimi stared at him and he stared down at the exceptionally clean carpet beneath his feet.

He felt the atmosphere shift as Mimi finally spun away from him and towards the table beside the window where a photo of a young John with a puppy was framed and placed – Paul remembered it being there because once he had taken time to stare out the little photograph in order to be able to recognise a version of John that he had never encountered before, and John had gotten slightly embarrassed over it.

“Please remember, Paul,” Mimi’s voice filled his ears once again. “Although John lost a mother last week, _I_ lost a sister. It’s not in my place to say how John may or may not be feeling, but I picture it that out of everybody, you _do_ know, don’t you?”

The last question came out a little bit softer and Paul flinched in preparation for the upcoming conversation that by then seemed inevitable. _This wasn’t in the ‘plan.’_

“I know about your mother, Paul,” she went on, and Paul cringed, clenching his eyes closed and keeping his head down, avoiding Mimi’s gaze that was now on him. “It was never John who told me, though, no – it was Julia. Do you know, she fussed over you _so much._ Did you ever wonder why?” There was a pause in which Mimi watched Paul, and Paul watched his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “She felt sorry for you, Paul. You, having lost your mother – she felt like it was her own responsibility to be there for you, because she was John’s mother, and you were John’s friend.”

Paul let out a trembling breath and for the first time, he looked up at Mimi. Her face was pale and Paul realised that her eyes were glassy and shining, surfaced with a blanket of tears that refused to spill.

“You know that John needs somebody. John is not you, and he needs an empathy that requires something more than just _trying_ to understand, which is all I can give him from now on. With that in mind, I’d like you to tell me, _Paul_ ,” she leaned forward be closer to Paul as she spoke, not allowing him to break his eyes away from hers this time. “Whose turn is it to be there for _him_ now?”

Paul didn’t even have a second to process what the answer to Mimi’s question should have been.

There was a slam and a click as the front door of the house was opened and slammed shut again; a voice that sounded _like_ John’s but simultaneously came across to Paul as foreign and unheard of came from the hallway, shutting down all of Paul’s synapses and stopping his whole body as well as mind from working efficiently.

“Mimi, m’ home!"yelled the voice, Paul was certain, although it was slurred and intoxicated. “Goin’ to be–”

Then John was stood in the doorway to the morning room.

Paul took this opportunity to rake his eyes over John, check up on him physically as he stood before him. His eyes were red and bloodshot, most likely from tears along with alcohol, and they strained further anyway due to his lack of glasses.  His hair looked greasy, though not from over-styling it, like it would usually appear – it would seem that he hadn’t made any attempt to wash himself up thoroughly for… well, since the day Julia died, Paul deduced.

He leaned against the doorframe, eyeing Paul with an entirely blank, emotionless face.

But, to Paul, he looked _broken._

“Oh,” John slurred, feigning a pleasantly surprised grin. “S’ nice ta’ see ya’ – been a while, hm.”

Paul swallowed thickly and straightened up his slumped, dumb looking posture, as if preparing for a battle he knew could start at any second, like awaiting a lightning strike after a clash of thunder.

“Johnny – uh, yeah. Hi.”

_Is that really all you can fucking manage, you thick cunt?_

John lifted himself up off the door and took a step forward into the room, a finger lazily raised and pointing at Paul. It seemed as though Mimi had turned completely invisible.

“D’you know,” John started. “George rang up earlier in the week.” There was a pause, as if John was awaiting a reply from Paul, but as Paul opened his mouth again to retaliate, John started speaking again. “Yeah, yeah – asked me how I was n’ that. Asked _Mimi_ how she was, even. Ain’t that nice, Paul? Isn’t it _really_ fuckin’ nice of him?”

Paul realised that by the time John shut up, he was standing directly in front of Paul, nose-to-nose, toe-to-toe, John’s alarmingly strong, beery breath covering his face and his senses.

“But I s’pose that you ‘ad an excuse not to bother, din’t ya?” John persisted, jabbing Paul harshly in the chest with three fingers, pushing him back. Paul looked to Mimi for support, but it appeared that she had indeed disappeared, or had, at least, left the room. “So, what is it, Paulie, ey? What’s the reason?”

Paul stuttered, having no forethought of a plan-of-action.

“Lemme’ guess, yeah? Oh, I dunno’ – did your mum fuckin’ die or somethin’?”

The last words came out followed by speckles of spit over Paul’s face, and Paul flinched, but it wasn’t because of the saliva that had been thrown out of John’s mouth.

“Oh, sorry, forgot!” John yelled, high-pitched and sarcastic as he raised his hands into the air in some sort of fake surrender. “Your mum was already fuckin’ dead, wasn’t she, eh? She fucked you off _long_ ago, didn’t she, _Macca_?!”

Paul felt his lip tremble as John stared at him, their faces close together as he seethed with anger and drunkenness and Paul shook with fear and hurt but, worst of all for him to deal with, guilt.

“Shut up,” he managed through gritted teeth.

“Pardon me, Paul?” John joked, jabbing at Paul’s chest again. “S’just that, I don’t think I heard a fuckin’ apology in there?”

“Shut _up!_ ” Paul repeated, but, as a surprise to himself, the words came out of his throat in a harsh yell, and his hands moved out before him to push John away. “I don’t ‘ave anythin’ to apologise for!”

John stumbled back and stared at Paul in what seemed like disgust, but then a tear trickled down his cheek and he raked his hands over his face, hiding any expression from Paul.

Paul realised, then – John’s lashing out was not because his mum was dead, not because he was drunk (although it’s very likely that both factors contributed to the outburst), but because Paul had abandoned him. Somebody else had abandoned him, and suddenly, Paul saw the memorised face of that little boy from the black and white picture on Mimi’s table – a boy whose father left him, a boy whose mother let him be taken from her.

A lost, lonely little boy.

“N-Neither do you,” Paul went on, forcing himself to soften up, because his mind kept on repeating Mimi’s question and now, he was sure, he had his answer. “John, you don’t – you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

John now stared at Paul as tears unmercifully poured down his face, and Paul let out a sob too, although until that point he had been completely unaware that he had been crying at all.

He took a tentative step forward, his arm outstretched towards John.

“S’not your fault, Johnny,” he whispered, trying to sound confident. “I _know –_ I fucking _know_ you think you could have stopped it, or that you could have made _some_ difference, but the fact is, you couldn’t have. This was – it wasn’t – it just wasn’t because of you, and nobody’s blaming you, y’know that?”

Paul’s hand touched John’s coat-covered arm, and he brought his other hand up to stroke away a few of John’s tears, glad to see that John was letting him talk, although he wasn’t looking at him at all as he did so.

“Nobody’s blaming you, Johnny – I know you think that somebody might be: your mum,” John flinched visibly at Paul’s last words, but Paul proceeded nevertheless. “I know because for _so long_ I tried searching for reasons it could have been my fault, when – when _my_ mum died,” he sighed, trying to tilt John’s face to look at him. “It’s the same, baby,” he whispered when John’s brown eyes met his own hazel ones, the redness of them starting to fade, slowly, gradually. “It’s the exact same, and I’m not leaving you alone anymore. I understand, and I’m here. I’m always here; a _lways._ I won’t leave you alone unless you send me away.”

John sniffled and tilted his face back to the side he had been facing before Paul had forced him to look at him, but this time his face nuzzled into Paul’s cupped palm, and Paul’s heart fluttered slightly when he felt John’s familiarly warm but slightly wet lips press a kiss to his wrist, and John’s hand tickled its way up Paul’s arm to hold where he had just kissed, keeping Paul where he was.

“Don’t leave me,” John whimpered pleadingly, closing his eyes and forcing out a few tears. “Please don’t. Not like – n-not like everybody else, Paul, please.”

Paul sighed sadly and brought John closer to him, resting his free hand on John’s waist.

“I’m not going to, love,” he soothed, stroking his thumb over John’s cheek. “I don’t want to. You know that.”

John sobbed into Paul’s hand and Paul cringed at the sight of _his_ John in so much pain, a pain that Paul knew well and had experienced personally. Loss. Hopelessness. Desperation.

Love.

Love is a pain that goes unnoticed – it’s disguised as a beautiful creature in itself, reaching out as a living spirit and sniping people of their sadness and sorrow and replacing it with this happiness, this fulfilment that humanity has dubbed as supposed ‘love’.

But there’s a truth that lies beneath love that nobody pays attention to – it’s a fear, and a need, and a pain that runs so deep into you that it stays with you forever, like a drug. Always leaving a legacy – a mark. Changing you. Chemistry, the science of change _. Love_.

When John feels love, Paul sees it over his face, but he sees it as fear. Not happiness, or hope, or fulfilment. They appear only briefly – what shadows over them is the pain. The fear of loving, fear of falling, the pain of handing your heart out to somebody but not being able to trust them, to trust _anybody._

“I know,” John whispered into Paul’s, now rather wet, palm. “I know.”

Paul smiled weakly and brought John closer to him. Then, he uttered an answer to another question that went unasked between them.

“I know.”

***

It was odd, really, because after that, neither John nor Paul ever actually spoke about it.

About Julia, about John’s guilt or Paul’s own experiences, about the pain.

They came out in small doses though, sometimes.

John had nightmares.

There was a time, not so long after the day of Julia’s funeral, when John had stayed at Paul’s house one late, drunken night, and had curled up beside him in the small bed, squashing himself beside the cold wall as he fell asleep, vaguely complaining that the room was spinning before Paul hushed him softly, and he finally slipped away into sleep – a time that was _supposed_ to be a temporary escape from all of the hardships of consciousness.

Paul was awoken by a hard kick to the leg and he shot up into an alarmed sitting position, staring at the body lay beside him.

John was squirming and kicking about frantically, stirring restlessly with his eyes clenched close, indicating that despite his erratic movements and moans of discomfort, he was still completely unconscious.

Paul panicked and shook John’s shoulder, whispering his name down towards his ear; John jumped and instantaneously clutched at Paul for dear life, holding onto his bare shoulders like he was holding onto reality, preventing himself from slipping back into nightmarish insanity.

Paul never asked about the dreams.

It happened on more than one occasion, but it had never occurred _before_ Julia’s death, so it wasn’t difficult for Paul to decipher what the dreams must have been about.

Sometimes, it didn’t even happen under Paul’s rather protective watch. On a few affairs, John would turn up at Paul’s house at daft hours in the morning, already prepared to climb up the drainpipe and straight into Paul’s arms, so long as Paul was awake. Paul would always wake up for John.

It worked that way, though. Paul felt as though in just existing he was still ‘being there’ for John, still able to protect him, to love him, to help him, without being verbal or trying to seem emotional, making it a sentimental matter for himself, which Paul strongly did not want to do, and he doubted that John would have wanted that either.

Then one day, they did start to talk.

It had been a good two months before The Quarrymen made _any_ plans regarding shows, and it seemed that they were going absolutely nowhere.

George was particularly pissed off about it. He never openly, verbally admitted it, but Paul could tell anyway. Every Friday, on the bus to school, they would always find themselves repeating the same conversation.

“So… anything been sorted out yet?” George would ask, shuffling about awkwardly in his seat.

“Uh… no, no – not _yet,_ anyway,” Paul would answer and would without fail feel guilty just for giving the message; though it wasn’t his fault, he was quick to defend the situation as well as himself. “Look, John just… he needs a break anyway, and Nigel’s getting himself busy with looking for work, so, it’s just… it’s a bit difficult, y’know. But soon. We’ll find something _soon,_ ” he would assure, and though by this point George would slump down in his seat and lean his head against the window remorsefully, Paul would nudge his thigh gently and grin encouragingly at him. “I promise,” he’d add, and George would smile back at him, albeit tightly and rather obviously forced.

Until finally, directly following the conversation they had on the bus as Paul and George hopped off their lift, they were greeted by the sight of a rather wind-blown looking John, wrapped in a long coat with its collar turned against the wind as he swayed about, squinting, preparing for the rain that seemed inevitable granted that the weather had been the exact same for what seemed like forever – always fucking raining.

George frowned so that his eyes seemed to magically disappear behind his eyebrows.

“Oi,” he quipped, nudging Paul in the ribs with his elbow. “S’that John over there?”

Paul spun around to face George as the bus drove off around the roundabout and away from them and he, too, squinted against the wind and against his madly blowing hair to spot what was indeed John, so unmistakable to Paul, stood outside his college building, waving his arms as if to summon them over.

“Yeah,” Paul answered, frowning back at George. Neither of them had heard from him in a while – George especially. The last time Paul had heard from him was the last time he turned up at his house, about a week prior, fresh from a bad dream, but he had disappeared before Paul woke up the following morning. It was worrying, but Paul left John to his own devices for a while. It’d been long enough since Julia to let John call the shots by himself. “C’mon. I think he wants us.”

The two boys, dressed in a different school uniform to John, made their way to their older friend until they stood directly in front of him. George was the first to speak.

“You’re up early,” he acknowledged, raising an eyebrow at him. “Haven’t seen you ‘round these parts in ages. What brings you here?”

Paul chuckled. His spirits were almost always raised just from seeing John. “Obviously not to go to school,” Paul joked, smirking at George and turning back to face John, smiling at him softly, affectionately. “You alright?” He asked quietly.

John smiled very gently. “Yeah, I’m alright,” he answered. “But I’m only nipping into the hellhole ‘till third period – Stu wants a hand with somethin’.”

George snorted. “Yeah, sure Stu would love a hand-s _omethin’_ from you, John,” he announced darkly, smirking at Paul. Paul grinned back, but cringed once George looked away.

John glared. “Yeah, maybe he would, Harrison; and if he got it, it’d still be ten times the amount of anythin’ that you’ve ever had, lad.”

Paul gritted his teeth together. “That’s nothing.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Ye’ what?”

He cleared his throat. “What you meant was to say that George has never ‘had’ anythin’. So that’s zero. But multiply zero by ten, and it’s still zero. So that’s _nothing_ , I hope you know.”

John snorted and reached into his pocket to root around for a cigarette, though Paul suspected that the aim was to divert his gaze from Paul’s. They both knew that when Paul said ‘nothing’, he meant that Stu would be getting _nothing_. Not as a mathematical fact. As an _order_.

“Either way, George has never had anythin’,” John shrugged as he lit the fag in his mouth. “And pretty much everyone else _has_ , so.”

“Oh, ‘eeyar, lads, leave me’ sex life out if it, yeah?” George pleaded, interrupting some sort of battle-stare going on between John and Paul so intense that if you reached inbetween them, the tension may have sliced your hand or a few fingers off.

Paul broke it first, but not before clenching his jaw tightly.

“So,” he said, staring at the ground. John always put Paul in a better mood – until John put Paul in a _shit_ mood. “What is it you’re after? Wouldn’t wanna’ keep Stuart waitin’, would we now?”

“Oh, yeah – quick get together later on, down a club on Victoria Street. Temple Court, I think… look, we’ll meet at the roundabout on Penny Lane and go from there.”

Paul sighed.

John glared. “You gonna’ show up, Macca?”

“Yeah,” he answered wistfully. _If only to keep an eye on you,_ he thought.

“Booze?” George chimed.

“Inevitably,” John answered.

“Birds?”

John chuckled. “Dunno' why you’d be mithered about girls, George. You won’t be gettin’ owt.”

George shrugged.

Paul couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Will Stu be joining us?”

The elder of the three slowly turned his head to face Paul, looking like he’d just been slapped in the face. “If Sutcliffe wants to come, he _will_. Problem?”

“No.”

“Good,” John grinned smugly and threw his cigarette to the ground, stepping on it. “Well, I’m off. See you’s later.”

John walked away without further ado, and Paul accidentally let out a groan of pure anguish, forgetting that George hadn’t left with John and had remained standing obediently beside him.

“Do you know that those two are plannin’ on movin’ into a shitty flat together?” Paul snapped at George. “What the _hell_ are they doin’, eh? Movin’ in together – it’ll be church bells and Woolworth’s fuckin’ nappies next, y’know!”

Paul groaned again and ran his hands through his hair, kicking his boot clad foot against the small walls outside of John’s college. It was childish how much he suddenly despised that _twat_ Stuart. He came out of fuckin’ nowhere, for Christ’s sake! Suddenly he’s the centre of the universe! Or Paul’s universe, anyway. But Paul’s universe was John’s universe. And John’s universe was, seemingly, Stu.

Paul was too lost in his thoughts of anger and sheer hatred that he hadn’t heard George laughing quietly beside him.

“Paul, ye’ sound daft as a bat,” he stated playfully, shaking his quiffed head down at Paul with contradicting sad, empathetic eyes. “There’s no need to be jealous – I’m sure ye’ still hold a major part of our Johnny’s heart.”

Paul tensed up, the words hitting home. “Why the _fuck_ would _I_ be jealous of _that_ Artsy twat?” Paul spat out.

George looked honestly taken aback. “Jesus, Paul, I was only havin’ a laugh with ya.”

Paul rolled his eyes and started walking down the pavement towards the Institute. “Yeah, _well_ ,” he mumbled uselessly.

George sighed.

Perhaps Paul should have been able to control himself a bit more when it came to John and Stu. _God, he hated that._ ‘John and Stu’, like they were already a fucking item. It’s ‘John and _Paul.’_ It always has been, even without the extra feelings, the extra kisses and affections that nobody knew about. You don’t have one without the other. You don’t have Yin without Yang.

And every time John mentioned Stuart, he’d speak with such innocence. So oblivious to any of the teenage painter’s flaws, so oblivious to all that Paul saw – ignorant to what Paul _felt._ It pissed Paul off. They’d be sat in John’s room some days, listening to Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley or whoever John fancied that day, and John would just go, ‘ _Oh, yeah, Stu said that he likes this one,’_ or ‘ _By the way, Stu reckons we should try_ this _out.’_ And it was so innocent that Paul couldn’t bring himself to make a fuss over it because it was just a _statement,_ it meant _nothing_ – but if it meant nothing more than _just a statement_ , then surely _all_ statements lack significance, lack _meaning._

‘ _I love you,’_ for instance.

But Stuart seemed to be helping John out with grieving just as much as Paul was, if not more. Paul was his reality, his paperweight, but also his saviour, his escape – a child’s lullaby on a stormy night. His guardian, of sorts. Watchful and careful, attached to John with cosmic strings, from soul to soul, from heart to heart.

Stuart was his universe beyond Earth. He was the wonders of the galaxies, the art of living, the art of _dying –_ the philosopher, the artist that made a blank canvas glow and glisten with fresh paint – “‘ _Every tap or scrape of a paintbrush is symbolic,’”_ John blurted out once, whilst he rested his head on Paul’s naked lap and John’s locked bedroom filled with smoke from Paul’s cigarette. Another one of Stuart’s sayings, Paul assumed, with a roll of his eyes. _“It’s a bit like life, that, isn’t it? Every tiny thing you do, say, breathe, think – it all means something, dunnit’, Macca? It all makes a picture. It all makes life.”_

At the time, Paul hadn’t batted more than an eyelid. He didn’t even try to understand what John was saying, just forced himself to relax, close his eyes and hum in blind acknowledgment.

But it made him think about Stuart and his influence on John. It was a good influence, wasn’t it? It wasn’t making him any worse. It was making him better in ways that sometimes went unnoticed. John wasn’t cured of loss, cured of pain, but the stitches were forming, very slowly, and maybe it was because of Paul, maybe it was because of Stuart, or maybe it was just John.

Either way, it didn’t change Paul’s dislike of Stu.

Didn’t change how must of a _bastard_ he was in Paul’s eyes most of the time.

Didn’t change how more in love Paul fell with John every time the threat of somebody else came along – somebody like Stuart.

With one more sigh, something they seemed to be doing rather often as of late, Paul and George both braced themselves for the rest of the day.

***

As was wholly expected, the weather made no improvements throughout the day. In fact, it got progressively worse – the rain had started by second period, Paul recalled, because he actually welcomed it as a hypnotising distraction from the maths lesson he was stuck in. He hated maths almost as much as he hated his teacher.

The rain persisted up until about 4 PM, just as Paul arrived home, granted the bus was late – not for the first time, of course, but it seemed a lot worse that day because Paul, George and Ivan Vaughan all got equally soaked through to the bone.

He was tired. He was getting wearier every day. It started off because John was coming to him with his nightmares and, sometimes, plain insomnia, almost every night of the holidays and afterwards, the weekends – sometimes school nights, if there was an especially bad case. Then, after a while, when the turn-ups died down, Paul started to worry more than what he had been doing originally, and found himself unable to sleep most nights anyway – he knew that it was getting increasingly unlikely that John would turn up, but he stayed awake, pondering. Worrying. Hoping.

All he wanted to do was collapse on the bed as he entered his room, so he granted himself the brief pleasure of just a lie down. Just a _rest,_ he assured himself, nothing more, because he had to meet John and George at Penny Lane a little later on, and he couldn’t miss it.

 _Just a rest,_ he repeated in his head as he took his tie off, let it drop to the floor and removed his belt, kicking his school shoes off and falling onto the bed, landing on his stomach. _Just a rest_ …

           

Paul woke up when the rain started to hammer against his window with double the force as the strong winds outside changed.

His first assumption was that it was John throwing stones to get his attention, and he instinctively leapt out of bed to hop up onto his windowsill and check.

By the time he got there, however, he realised that although it _was_ dark outside, (granted it was December and the days were far shorter) it was not, really, that late. The curtains were left open and his door was left ajar. It was late in the day, but not late at night.

He jumped, startled, as he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

With wide eyes and a heart racing against his chest, he picked up the little clock beside his bed and brought it close to his face to read the arms, having not thought in all his well-slept haze to turn at least the lamp on.

The clock read 8:46.

_Shit._

He sprinted to the wardrobe, not even giving himself a minute to think about what he was doing, and began yanking out clothes – a plain t-shirt, some black drainies and a rather thick tweed jacket are what he selected, and he threw them on with elite speed, only remembering to check himself as he left his room and made his way to the landing. To his surprise, he seemed to have dressed himself sufficiently.

He grabbed a comb off the mantelpiece in the living room, scuffing the sides of his hair back, not caring much what it looked like. He just had to get out, fast.

He was so busy getting himself ready in a panic that he never noticed a presence by the living room door.

“Where you going?” Jim McCartney’s voice asked, and Paul spun around to find his dad stood there, drying a pan with a dishcloth in the doorway.

“Out,” Paul answered. “With George.”

To Paul’s dismay, Jim snorted and shook his head. “Don’t think so, boy,” he stated, his voice sounding like he was giving Paul some sort of warning. “If ye’ leave this house tonight, don’t expect to be sleeping in it later.”

“But he needs me.”

The sentence flew out of Paul’s mouth before he could stop the words from escaping and his lips snapped closed as if trying to hold something behind them that was already free.

Jim frowned. “Who needs you?”

Paul started to fidget, a trait of his that would occur whenever he got irritably nervous. He fiddled with his fingers. “Uh, George,” he said. “He has homework and he can’t get his head around it… I did it last year, so… I said I’d help him. He’ll get the cane if I don’t.”

Jim huffed. “You’ve got all weekend for that; you’re not leaving this house tonight.”

Paul growled. The words that he had spoken moments before remained plastered up in his head. _He needs me. John needs me._

_I need him. I need John._

With a heavy sigh, Paul nodded. “Right then,” he mumbled flatly, dropping the comb back where he had found it.

For a moment, Jim stared at him until he seemed to have found whatever he was looking for – trust in his son. He walked away from the living room calmly.

Paul sighed.

Time to break the trust.

He grabbed his coat, sprinted to the door, headed out into the dark, wet road of a street lit up by flickering, yellow street lamps, and he ran.

There was a memory recurring as he sprinted down the street towards a bus stop he knew was nearer than Penny Lane, and he had money on him, so he could probably tip the bus driver off to go wherever he wanted, but all he could really think of was the night in the summer, before Julia died, before there was Stu – or the closeness to Stu, anyway – when Paul needed John and John needed Paul, and it was John holding him and comforting him, holding him and telling him that everything was going to be alright.

The grin spread across his face and he sped up his jog slightly.

_It’s still the same now._

           

Temple Court was busy that night. The wide, cobble pathway that travelled down it was glistening and shining with red, white and yellow lights that reflected down from the shops, bars and clubs that littered the street. There were people around, too – the odd businessman walking home, late from work, complete with bowler hat and trench coat. Girls were loitered outside the clubs, huddled together in groups with their skyscraper heels and their bright, tight, short dresses, giggling and talking with that overwhelmingly strong Liverpool lass accent that Paul’s mother had despised so much when she had been alive.

It was as he reached the designated area that Paul realised he had no idea which club John had been on about.

Then he heard it.

The smash of a pint glass against the wet cobbles on the ground; the loud, enraged clicks of stomping heels against the pavement; there was a girl trampling through puddles with her arms crossed, but she swayed slightly, evidently drunk and trying with all her might to appear sober enough to be reasonably angry.

The thick bob of short, blonde hair was a dead giveaway. Paul knew that girl, alright – John’s girlfriend, Thelma.

Paul was about to head over to her, ask her where John (and George, too), were and where to find them, but then he realised that it was not her who had smashed that pint glass.

Paul stopped dead in his tracks when, from a hustle of smokers gathered outside a bar further down the street on the left side, came an obviously hurt, enraged, pissed-out-his-face John, marching out with clumsiness after Thelma.

“Oi!” He yelled, his voice strongly slurred as it always would be when he got drunk. “Who d’you ‘fink you are, eh?! Where you goin’?! Get back here now, Thelma, or I swear to _God_ I’ll find ye-!”

To Paul’s surprise, Thelma (who was now stood very close to where Paul was frozen) spun around, clicking her heels together in annoyance.

“Bugger off, John, you fuckin’ bastard!” She screamed, stomping her feet as would a child throwing a tantrum. She straightened up when John didn’t stop making his way towards her. In fact, he sped up.

Paul panicked. He knew John could lash out at her any moment, and he knew he couldn’t let that happen to Thelma. Although she was only an on-and-off relationship, she put up with a load of bollocks from John on a regular basis – almost as much as Paul did.

He was about to head out towards Thelma, stop John from getting any closer, but then Thelma spat out words that Paul had known somewhere that every girl that John ever pissed off must have been thinking when they started to have enough of him.

“Just because your mum’s dead, doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me, you twat!”

Paul’s mouth dropped open despite himself, his eyes wide in shock as he stared at John, who still hadn’t spotted him, and waited for a reaction. To Paul’s surprise, John halted completely.

He froze into place and jolted himself back as if being yanked back by an invisible string and watched with child-like confusion and hurt as Thelma continued to march away from him – he genuinely did look like an abandoned puppy.

Thelma disappeared and, as if a veil of invisibility was lifted, John could see Paul.

They stared at each other from across the way and Paul relaxed when John didn’t make any advancement on him. He stuck his hands in his coat pocket and made his way towards him, slowly and calmly.

The two of them were face to face when Paul stopped and sighed. “What happened?”

John’s face turned to something bitter. “Was about to ask you the same thing,” he spat.

“Look, I fell asleep. I’m sorry. I’m shattered. Sleep hasn’t been coming easy recently.” Paul stopped and frowned. “Where’s George?” He inquired with a hint of worry.

John shrugged. “Think he went home,” he answered.

“And… Stu?”

John rolled his eyes and gave Paul an aggravated look, and Paul snapped his mouth shut, looking down at the floor with sluggish embarrassment.

“What the fuck is it with you and Stu, Paul? Jesus Christ, he’s only a lad.”

Paul swallowed thickly. “Yeah, well, I’m ‘only a lad’ too, aren’t I?”

John, who had pulled out a cigarette and had started to light it, dropped his match and looked up at Paul.

Paul was surprised to find softness in John’s eyes, despite his words coming out with slight harshness. “What, so, yer’ jealous? S’that it?”

Paul groaned and put his face in his hands.

John chuckled rather darkly, sounding not at all shocked by his discovery. “Fuckin’ hell, you are, aren’t ya? You’re jealous of Stu!”

As John started to laugh loudly, Paul stiffened up. He didn’t risk being thrown out of his house for a night to put up with this bullshit. He took a deep breath and spun around, storming off in a similar way to what Thelma had done earlier.

“’Ey, c’mon, wait a minute. You’ve only just got here!”

Paul kept walking.

“Paul!” John yelled from behind him. “Macca!”

Paul didn’t look back.

Until there was a strong hand on his arm, yanking him around until he was facing John once again.

Paul took a step back, but didn’t make an attempt to escape again. It shocked him how daringly close John was standing, granted they were in public and they knew there were people all around them.

A car in the road behind them drove past, headlights blaring, and it lit up the whole street enough for Paul to be faced with the perfect, pristine image of John. His eyes were glistening.

_Is he crying?_

Paul started to stutter. “I – I… what’s the matter? Is it – is it because of Thelma? I’m sorry I was late, I just–”

“Why haven’t you been sleeping well, Paul?”

Paul was taken aback by the question. He didn’t think that John would have been bothered by that – he’d expected a verbal lashing for being late, excuses aside.

He swallowed thickly. “Uh… dunno, do I? It’s just… difficult. I dunno.”

John moved his hand up to grip Paul’s shoulder and he looked down at him like a parent would at a lying child. “Macca, don’t lie to me…” he sighed and ran his free hand over his face and his shoulders shuddered as his breath hitched with a sob. Paul thought, _when are we going to stop finding things that make us cry? Why are we always fucking crying?_

_Then again, two blokes together? Is there ever an easy route for people like us?_

“The reason you’re not sleeping, it’s ‘cause of me, isn’t it? ‘Cause I’m doin’ yer’ head in all the fuckin’ time… Christ…”

Paul was dumbstruck. For John to catch onto something like that, let alone address it, confront it, was an enormous deal – massively out of character for John.

John sighed shakily. “D’you wanna’ go somewhere?” He pleaded.

“Uh, I… I suppose so, yeah,” Paul agreed, nodding his head, and John headed off down the street, Paul following closely.

 

“When you suggested ‘going somewhere’,” Paul yelled, his voice getting lost in the strong wind. “I thought you meant, y’know, a house, or a bar – or _somethin’_ – not the fuckin’ docks!”

John was hanging over a railing, staring down at the black waters of the Mersey. He didn’t flinch when Paul hopped up beside him, leaning over the metal fence to get a clearer view of the waves hitting the tall walls of the Albert Docks, the strong smell of salty water filling his sinuses.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t fancy goin’ home – s’only early yet,” John explained before he stepped off the fence and settled on a wet bench, leaving room for Paul to join him, which he did.

The two of them sat in silence, staring out at the lights littering over Birkenhead on the opposite side of the river; the slapping of the flags blowing wildly in the wind could be heard all the way from the Liver Building and the slaps of tiny waves and the fast current of the high tide were the only sounds filling the (not exactly unpleasant) quiet surrounding them.

 Then John’s head was on Paul’s shoulder, burrowing into the side of Paul’s neck and he wrapped one arm around Paul’s stomach, tucking him in closer.

“John, what are you doing?” Paul chuckled and wrapped an arm over John’s shoulders, resting his hand on his coat covered back, and he lifted himself up into a straighter sitting position so that John had more room, just to get closer to Paul, holding him tightly.

Paul had a smile on his face and he looked down at the top of John’s head. It was interesting, he thought, how an eighteen-year-old still felt the need to cuddle people – Paul, specifically, who was two years younger than him. He giggled softly at the irony of it.

However, he was cut short of his laughter when he felt John shudder beneath his hand and it was then that he realised that John was not simply cuddling up to him drunkenly, but he was crying.

John was crying into his shoulder, and Paul’s heart almost leapt out of his chest with worry.

“Johnny? Hey now, what’s the matter? What’s wrong, baby?” He asked, trying to lean forward to peak at John’s face, but to no use – all he got was a face full of scruffy, auburn hair.

John took a long, uneven breath before he blubbered out a few words, but Paul couldn’t make anything out any of them.

“Ye’ what, love? I couldn’t pick anythin’ out of that, John; sit up for me, will ya?”

John lifted his head off Paul’s shoulder and looked up at his friend. His eyes were bloodshot already and his cheeks were streaming wet; Paul had never seen him in such a state before, not even that night after Julia’s funeral. His lips quivered pitifully and his eyebrows pinched together, giving his whole face a pleading, desperate look, like he was confused about everything about the world, like he woke up one morning on another planet and couldn’t make sense of it.

“It keeps ‘appenin’,” he sobbed out, and Paul leaned slightly back as the, now disturbingly familiar, beery breath hit him, but never took his eyes off John. “I k-keep loosin’ people, and it _must_ be m-my fault, because it only ever ‘appens to _me!”_

“Don’t be daft, love, no it doesn’t just happen to you,” Paul soothed, rubbing John’s back affectionately. “I’ve lost my mum too, remember? Yer’ not alone, babe.”

“No, but there’s _more!_ Uncle George died when I was fourteen, for Christ’s sake! Me’ d-dad didn’t think twice when he pissed off abroad, did he? Thelma won’t be puttin’ up with me no more, not after tonight, and now _Julia_ , too – for fuck’s sake, even _you’re_ gettin’ ill over me now, Paul! Not sleepin’ ‘cause of me! What – what if I’m a jinx? What if everyone gives up on me in the end?”

Paul stared at John with wide doe-eyes, his mouth opening and closing a few times, forgetting how to form an answer. “John…” he finally started. “First off, you’re not makin’ me ill, and it’s not down to you whether I sleep or not, right? I’m not goin’ anywhere. Yer’ dad hasn’t got an excuse, he’s just a twat, to be perfectly honest… But hey, when people die, they’re not… they’re not leavin’ _you_ , you know. It only feels that way because it hurts just the same.”

John swallowed back some tears. “D-does it ever get better? Do you ever get over her? Your – your mum?”

Paul closed his eyes for a moment and took a long breath in through his nose; it was like opening up an old wound, the pain of the past returning all at once, completely intact.

“N-not really…” he admitted, his eyes still closed. He couldn’t see John’s face, couldn’t bear to see the pain that would undoubtedly be ridden all over him – not when he was talking about _this._ “You just learn that there’s a life that goes on after a death. That life is yours. You learn to live it, uncontaminated by pain and fear and stuff…” he sighed and forced his eyes open. “You, uh… adjust.”

John wiped his hand over his face and returned to resting on Paul’s shoulder. Paul moved back, relaxing his body in order to make John more comfortable.

“I feel… trapped, like… there’s no way out of it; this – this _agony_. I feel as though I’m n-never gunna’ feel anything else, ever again… I don’t remember the last time I laughed and m-meant it, Paul…”

“I don't know, John, you laughed pretty hard when George fell down that open grid in the street the other day…”

Paul grinned when John snorted. “That was very, very funny.”

“Well then maybe you just have to wait ‘till something makes you happy again, hm? For me, it was music and to be honest just… laughing helped sometimes.”

“I know what mine is already.”

Paul raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move to try to see John. “Oh? What is it?”

John lifted his head this time and brought his face right up to Paul’s. “You.”

Paul smirked. “Me?” He echoed. “You’re drunk, you are. D’you wanna’ go home now, eh? It’s freezing.”

“No, no – stay here for a bit. Just... stay…” Suddenly, John’s hand was trailing down Paul’s side and he cupped Paul’s crotch, kissing Paul’s neck as he did so.

“ _Whoa_ – John!” Paul yelped, trying to get John’s hand off him – it felt nice, and the feeling of John nibbling on his earlobe as well as the hand stroking over his crotch felt heavenly, as always, but… “John, we’re in… fuck, Johnny, baby, y’know I love doin’ this but… not here, love, c’mon, if we get caught we get thrown in a cell – let’s go back to yours, yeah?”

“No, Paulie, let’s stay here, forever. We’ve got so much time – we’re not goin’ anywhere any time soon, are we?”

“Johnny, stop.” Paul grabbed John’s wrist and looked him in his eyes sternly, and John stopped this time, staring back at Paul with hazy eyes. “What’s this about not goin’ anywhere any time soon?”

John shrugged. “S’just… ‘cause… I’m… I’m useless, aren’t I? We’re… we’re not getting anywhere with me around, and the band just isn’t… flowing, the same as it used to be, y’know, and… Jesus Christ, ‘m so sorry you had to meet me that day at the fête, Macca, ‘m so fuckin’ sorry…”

“Whoa, whoa, stop there, right? Just stop it,” Paul sighed when John gazed weakly at him, an oddly fearful look on his face.

He leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to John’s cheek, tangling his fingers in the hair at the back of John’s head, pulling him back to rest on his shoulder again. John sighed and accepted the invitation, seemingly gratefully. Paul smiled softly into the top of John’s head as an idea popped into his mind.

“Hey, Johnny? Where are we goin’?”

 “…What?”

“Where we goin’, Johnny?”

At the repetition of the question, John stirred and looked up at Paul; he had a soft half-smile on his lips as he realised what Paul was getting at, and it urged Paul on, kissing John’s forehead, trusting that there was nobody around them to see anything.

“Johnny, love, where is it that we’re goin’ again?” He repeated, his voice soft when John let his face fall back into the padded coat shoulder that Paul was wearing, and he let out a sob once again, although this time, he seemed to be choking on his tears with laughter.

“To the top, Paulie – we’re going straight to the top, baby.”

Paul smiled wider at John’s words and he shrugged his shoulder softly, forcing John to lift his head up.

The two looked at each other – mirrors.

Paul leaned in and kissed John’s lips, cupping the side of his face with his own cold fingers. The kiss was soft and tentative, and Paul half expected John to turn it into something more, make it more fierce, as he seemed to do with everything – John was a torch, setting everything he touched ablaze with his eccentric nature, his fascinating mind, his complex, stunning features.

But John kissed back just as softly, cherishing the reassuring feeling of their lips together in that delicate way – its purity was like a medicine, clearing both of their heads – cold water pouring over scorched skin.

Paul pulled away first and stroked John’s cheekbone. He smirked, like he knew something that John didn’t. “Where are we goin’ before we get to the top, Johnny?”

John frowned, evidently befuddled by Paul’s question. “I, uh… what?”

Paul chuckled. “Go on, you know! Where are we gonna’ go? You and me.”

John looked completely bemused, and Paul chuckled.

“Scotland, hey? Soon. We’ll go as soon as we can, like you wanted to. You wanted to take me away, remember? Wanted to look after me?” Paul paused and watched with pleasure as John’s face lit up with a memory, like a light-bulb had been switched on in his mind. “We’ve still gotta’ do that, you know. And we will.”

John looked mesmerised by Paul, and there was a silence between them as John stared at him, like he’d discovered something life changing. “You’re mine, you are. God, please just be mine, because I’m already yours. I’m completely _yours_ , Paul.”

Paul smiled gently and shook his head. “Johnny,” he started. “I’ve always been yours.”


	9. Chapter 9

It was a relief that Jim hadn’t needed too much persuasion to let Paul go to Scotland on such short notice. They had barely a week and a bit before Christmas when they were intending to leave – as soon as possible was the plan, so as soon as Paul finished school for the Christmas holidays, John had booked two train tickets to Edinburgh at the earliest time available, and that happened to be 5:40 AM the day after Paul’s last day of school.

Paul was, to say the least, ecstatic to be going away with John. Originally, the plan had been to just hitchhike up there; more fun, more adventurous. But the winters in Scotland are harsh and the days suffer far more dark than light, so it seemed a logical precaution to just head straight to their destination.

John helped Paul pack the night before– well, he was _supposed_ to be helping him pack, but in actuality, he just lay on Paul’s bed and refused to shut up.

“Do you really think we should have booked the twenty-to-six train? I mean, it does seem a bit early…”

“Takes ages to get to Edinburgh though, and I fancy getting there as early as possible; we only have a few days,” Paul explained as he shoved an anorak into his rather inconveniently small suitcase on the floor beside the bed that John occupied. Paul stopped, smirking, to look up at him. “Why? Is it too early for you, babe?”

“No,” John was quick to defend himself, snorting pompously and leaning back down into Paul’s pillow. “Just didn’t want you missin’ out on your beauty sleep, Princess, but whatever. If you’re up for it then fine, five-forty it is.”

Paul rolled his eyes and got back to work.

“And anyway,” John went on, drawing a sigh from a tired, busy Paul. “We’ve got loads of time. Aunt Liz and her Bertie aren’t mithered about when we get there, so long as we end up leavin’ soon enough.”

“S’not about that,” Paul retorted. “We’ve got to be back before the twentieth, at least, for George’s Harry’s wedding, and it’s nearly Crimble anyway, innit? We can’t disappear forever.”

At this, a shadow appeared over Paul that seemed to be John sitting up on his elbow, sporting a hopeful, mischievous grin on his face. “Why not?”

Paul frowned and slowly lifted his head to stare at John, bemused. “Beg pardon?”

John chuckled, making Paul’s heart swell in his chest despite the tiring knowledge that he had to get the packing done.

“Why not? Why can’t we disappear forever?”

There was a pause, and then Paul sighed. “Are you fucking mental?”

“Mad as a hatter – and before you say anything too queer, I contemplated saying ‘madly in love’, but you would have battered me,” John bit his lip in a playful smirk. “Or, you would have tried to.”

Paul fought the urge to make a violent point towards John, because he knew, somewhere, that their silly play-fighting would only lead on to a randy John and a more than willing Paul, and they’d be getting nothing done in that state.

“I _could_ batter you,” Paul made sure to say, looking at John pointedly before he stood and spun around to open his wardrobe again. “But I won’t.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” John’s voice was teasing, challenging, and Paul realised then that the reason John was incapable of staying quiet for more than a few minutes was most likely because he was excited – the way he was lying down, but couldn’t really keep himself still, and how he kept on trying to urge Paul into paying attention to him – John was trying to stay grounded, distract himself from excitement, using Paul to do so. Paul grinned. It had taken him, what – a year and a half? But he finally believed that he had John mostly figured out.

“Just being merciful,” Paul answered nonchalantly, shrugging casually as he dragged out an oversized jumper from the wooden wardrobe and started to fold it neatly, still withholding himself from looking at John.

“You mean because you love me.”

It was supposed to sound arrogant– well, it _did_ sound arrogant – but something in the way John paused before letting the words escape him left Paul to infer that he was looking for something more from Paul than just a playful argument, a silly game – he wanted reassurance; a solid truth to keep him calm, like a paperweight; stop his excitement from racing away ahead of him. So, rather than arguing, Paul just grinned, twirled back around, and looked John in the eyes.

“Yeah. Because I love you.”

***

The morning after was quiet and cold and John slept for most of the train journey; Paul doodled and wrote a few lines in his notebook, and he would have gazed lazily out of the window, but it was dark until about half seven so there wasn’t really anything to look at other than a sleeping John with his face pressed against the window, watching him slip forward every time the carriage rattled with a particular surge of strength.

John woke up eventually; he peaked one eye open and Paul lifted his head just in time to catch his stare.

“Mmurnin’,” John grumbled, lifting his head off the slightly condensed window to yawn and stretch a bit.

Paul grinned haughtily. “Who’s the Sleeping Beauty now then, eh?”

“Still – _phwoar_ –you,” John managed to groan out through a stretch, grinning lazily. “I feel like a mountain troll or somethin’.”

“Well, you don’t _look_ like one,” Paul mindlessly assured, resting his notebook on the empty seat beside him.

“How long ‘ve we got left?”

“Um…” Paul checked his watch. “About forty-five minutes yet.”

John’s eyes widened as he seemed to enter full awareness. “How long’s the full journey again?”

“Roughly four hours,” Paul chuckled. “You’ve been out for ages – over three hours, you lazy bastard.”

John giggled and shrugged his shoulders. “How do we make the time fly then?”

Paul raised his eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. “What are you getting at, John?”

“Jesus Christ – nothin’, you moody git! I’m just sayin’, I’ve only just woken up and I’m bored already…”

Paul rolled his eyes – _anything to pass the time, eh_. Unable to contain his grin, he sat up and leaned over to John, resting his hands on John’s thighs. “ _’Nothin’_ , my arse – _liar_ ,” Paul smirked and leaned closer, pressing their lips together with firm strength.

It was supposed to be quick, a firm peck just to say ‘ _I’m glad you’re awake now,’_ but before Paul could prevent it, John’s hands were around his waist and were tugging him closer, _closer_ , until he literally had no choice but to straddle John’s thighs, his knees digging into the back of the seat.

The seat that belonged to the train.

The _public_ train.

_Fuck._

“Johnny,” Paul whispered against John’s lips, but John just moved his head, kissing down Paul’s jaw. “Johnny, _we can’t_ ; look where we are–”

“Shut _up,”_ John growled, and his large hands were suddenly cupping Paul’s arse, pulling him closer so that their pelvis’ inevitably grinded together, the friction hard, forceful and almost unbearable.

John just groaned and hid his face in Paul’s jumper covered shoulder and repeated the action, drawing a moan from Paul, seemingly winning the battle between sensible and reckless.

But Paul wasn’t giving in so easily – he had a head on his shoulders and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

“John, stop,” he demanded, pulling back – though reluctantly – and forcing John to look up at him. John looked slightly crestfallen at the rejection, so Paul smirked softly and traced John’s bottom lip with the rough tip of his thumb. “We’ve got the rest of the week for that; if we’re gonna’ be arrested, let’s leave it for something worth being arrested for, yeah?”

John sighed. “Fine,” he agreed, pecking Paul’s lips with his own once more before settling down in his seat, slowly rubbing his hands over Paul’s thighs in circles until the younger lifted himself up to move, sitting back down in his previous seat.

Forty-five minutes couldn’t go fast enough.

***

John’s Aunt Elizabeth lived in a really nice house, Paul thought – it was all brightly lit up and gloriously spacious, especially to Paul, who had spent his childhood in little Speke council estates and then in his home on Forthlin. The garden, too, appeared never-ending; the seeable space seemed to be an infinite stretch of multiple shades of green, covered with a blanket of thick, grey clouds.

The house was surrounded by an unfamiliar, somewhat earthy smell. Paul welcomed it; you don’t get that sort of freshness in Liverpool.

However, one thing that seemed to follow them from home was the rain.

It was dark outside but the lights from the dining room highlighted the little rain droplets that trickled down the glass doors of the dining room, racing one another to the bottom.

Paul was sat on the floor, holding his knees to his chest, watching them race away. As soon as he and John had dropped their cases off at Elizabeth’s house, they were off out again, wandering the Scottish streets thoughtlessly, nipping and popping into shops; they _tested_ a pub, too, but Paul faltered when asked his birth date and so they were sent away, sober, their tales between their legs.

When they returned, John was whisked off to chat with Liz, Bertie and Cousin Stan in the kitchen, so Paul made his way to the dining room to sit in silence for a while, feeling rude to be intruding on family matters. This was the first time the family had been together since Julia’s funeral; Paul felt that he probably shouldn’t have been involving himself in that area too much.

Paul heard a door click, and John appeared in the reflection of the window, hopping into the room but remaining a distance away from Paul. “Comin’ up yet?”

Paul turned to look at him. “To bed?”

“Yeah,” John replied, leaning against the wall. “I’m shattered, but I didn’t wanna’ leave you by yourself. Might get kidnapped or somethin’ – you never know with the Scots.”

Paul’s eyebrows furrowed into a frown at the silly, rather racist comment, but his lips betrayed him, lifting up into an amused smirk. “Yeah, okay. See your logic,” he chuckled sarcastically, standing up and dusting his bum off in one swift hand movement. “I’m tired n’ all, but it’s still a bit early.”

“Well…” John started, smiling widely and knowingly. Paul stopped in front of him, holding the door open and waiting for John to finish his sentence so they could both go up to bed. Paul grinned when John lowered his voice. “Quick snog, quick _whatever-else-you-fancy_ ; post-goz dream sleep, and then we’ll be all nice and oven-baked for the day ahead tomorrow,” he paused. “Sound good?”

Paul’s heart fluttered in his chest, and something else stirred in his stomach with blatant anticipation for John’s plan. He smirked and grabbed John’s wrist. “Sounds fucking perfect.”

***

Paul woke up the following morning feeling confused and disoriented.

He was bewildered as to why he was lay on a mattress on the floor, why the sheets he was tangled in smelt of a different household, and why, as he sat up and looked around, the room he was in was not his own room at Forthlin Road, but only a very vaguely familiar one.

It took him a few minutes to remember where he was, and he leaned up onto the bed that was next to him to find that John must have already woken up and gone downstairs.

Paul yawned, got out of bed, and dressed himself steadfastly, not particularly caring for what he put on, settling for a plain old t-shirt and some pale jeans.

Before he had even reached downstairs, he heard muffled voices rising through from the kitchen; he didn’t _mean_ to listen in, but he found himself doing so anyway, with no major sense of initial guilt.

“John, I really don’t know if–”

“Stan, bloody hell, it’s not that big a deal – I’m eighteen, you know, and we’ve been going there all our lives! That place is mine just as much as it is yours or our Leila’s.”

“Yeah, but it’s not Paul’s, is it?”

“So what?! It’s a holiday, Stan; we’re not moving in!”

“A holiday in winter, hm?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“John, I’d much rather you both stay here and see the city or somethin’…”

“Stanley. Paul and I live in Liverpool. We see cities everyday of our lives. Doesn’t interest us seein’ shops and markets any more than playing with dolls would interest you. Come on, cousin, be a lad.”

There was a pause, and Paul was about to enter the kitchen, but not before the voices started up again.

“I just…” Stan started, and then sighed deeply. “Look, there’s nothing there this time of year. You can’t go to the beach for a swim without getting hypothermia or summat; you can’t go out in the fields without coming back filthy and dark skinned from the mud… I just don’t see why you’d want to go – unless…”

“Unless _what_ , Stan?” John snapped, sounding somewhat bored of the conversation.

“You and Paul, there’s nothing… y’know, there’s nothing going on or anything, is there? Because I’ll be havin’ no part in _that,_ John Lennon.”

Paul’s heart stopped. His hand clenched around the door handle and his throat closed up tightly, his mouth drying – he felt like he’d just swallowed a bucket full of sand. _Shit_. If John let anything slip, that was it for the both of them – _fuck_ , had they been _that_ obvious?

Paul’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. _Had Stan heard something last night?_

The few seconds before John answered went by excruciatingly slowly, leaving Paul to ponder, worry and panic to himself. They had to be more careful. If Stan knew something already, then they could be one mere phone call away from a van taking them to a prison cell – their lives essentially ending there and then, because there would be nothing left for them outside if it did come to that.

“ _Jesus_ , Stan; are you serious? Don’t be so bloody stupid, you twit! I’ve not been to the house in two years and seeing as though we’re up here, I want to go! Is that such a big fucking deal?”

“Keep your voice down and mind your rotten language, John.” Stan spat out, and then breathed slowly, calming himself down. “Right… I’ll… I’ll help you, okay? I’ll do what I can… get the keys and that… you’re not, uh, you’re not gonna’ be there for Christmas, are you?”

“No, don’t be daft.”

Once Paul regained control over his body, he swallowed thickly and thought it was about time to enter the kitchen and find out what John had been on about, this _place_ he was talking of. His curiosity was piqued as his worry simmered down, and he pushed open the wooden door, greeted by Stan, who seemed to be ready for work in his suit and tie, and John in front of him, who was dressed just as lazily as Paul was.

At the sight of Paul, John’s eyes seemed to light up and he smiled broadly at him.

“Macca, we’re goin’ away!”

Paul frowned and feigned utter confusion, despite having listened in on the whole conversation. “What do you mean, ‘away’?”

“We rented a croft a while back way up north and Stan was sayin’ how they’re pulling out soon, because their deal expires or somethin’, so I thought we’d go down there for a bit rather than just stick to the city.” John paused, though his confidence faltered slightly. “Do you want to do that?”

Paul grinned. “Yeah!” He almost yelled, excited at the concept – the word ‘croft’ stayed in his mind, and it made sense. A big stretch of land all to themselves, nothing surrounding them. The image of John hovered over him in bed at Mendips filled Paul’s head.

‘ _Where the fairy-tales happen,’_ John had said, and Paul realised, then, that this had probably been John’s plan all along.

“Perfect,” John chimed, his confidence refurbished. He turned to face his older cousin. “Right, Stan?”

The way Stanley looked between the two of them – John and Paul – as if he was looking for the answer to a private question made Paul almost nauseous with anxiety – it was barely possible to just ignore it, but he managed, and pulled a small smile in Stan’s direction.

“Yeah,” Stan finally said, shrugging his shoulders. “But you’ll have to go quick. I’ll drop ya’s off at the train station and you can just jump on a few rides until you get down to Durness; make sure you get a taxi to the croft, John, no matter how much it costs you. Mimi would never forgive me if you got lost or something stupid like that.”

John placed his hand over his heart. “Scouts honour,” he vowed, batting his eyelashes.

Paul chuckled when Stan rolled his eyes.

“Go get your stuff ready; you’ll have to skip breakfast if you want to get there.”

John smirked at Paul and ushered him back up the stairs, not saying another word to Stanley.

Paul turned to face him when they reached their very temporary abode. “How far away is it? Durness?”

John stared at Paul for a minute. “What? You’ve never been?” He asked, but realised the answer was obvious. “Um, pretty far up north – right by the sea, in the highlands – middle of nowhere.”

Paul smirked. “Where fairy-tales happen?”

John copied Paul’s expression, nodded his head, and leaned in to kiss Paul’s cheek softly, repeating, “Where the fairy-tales happen,” in a whisper against Paul’s ear.

***

“Hurry up, Johnny,” Paul rushed him, sheltered from the dark night and the pouring rain under a little wooden porch and waiting whilst John fiddled endlessly with the keys to the front door. Paul was somehow managing to sustain holding two guitar cases and two suitcases successfully as John put every bit of his attention into getting the door opened.

“Alright,” John snapped, tongue slotted inbetween his teeth in concentration. “And… _done,_ ” he sighed out finally, sounding relieved when he pushed open the door and was able to take his two cases from a struggling Paul.

Paul rolled his eyes. “Anyone would think that opening a door was difficult, the way you go about it.”

John glared slightly, dumping his case behind an old looking sofa. “It was stiff,” he growled, shrugging his coat off his shoulders and leaving it on the coat hanger.

He flicked the tall lamp beside the sofa on and the room lit up with a cosy, orange glow. Paul dropped the cases by the coat hanger and hung his own coat up (leaving him in his more comfortable blue jeans and a large, mud-green jumper) and then spun around, finally giving himself a moment to get a look of the place that the two of them would be sharing for the few upcoming days.

There were two cushioned arm chairs in separate corners of the room, both very 40s-style with dark checked fabric, and then one yellow double-sofa facing the fireplace which had a large, impressively engraved mantelpiece – Paul realised that wood and bark had already been chopped and was ready to burn inside it. On the floor in front of the fireplace was a thick, furry looking rug, and Paul elected to avoid contemplating whether or not the fur was real, although he immediately doubted that it was.

John sat on the back of the double sofa and grinned when Paul walked further into the dimly lit room. “Whadda’ ya’ think then?”

Paul chuckled quietly. “It’s nice; very cosy, innit?”

John shrugged. “Yeah, well,” he started, looking around with a fond look on his face. “It’s supposed to be a family home. It’s great, I think. I mean, in contrast to the weather outside n’ that… it’s warm.”

Paul nodded blankly and gazed around the room. There were one or two doors around them and then across the room there was a little hallway leading to what Paul assumed were the three bedrooms in the house. He noticed, as he walked past John and onto the rug, that there was no television.

There was, however, a record player hidden away in the corner beside one of the arm chairs under a little window with a tiny radio stuffed beneath it.

“What do you wanna’ do, then?” John asked cheerfully as he let himself fall back onto the sofa from where he was sat on the back of it.

Paul shrugged and turned to look at John, who was smiling lazily at him with his long legs sprawled out all over the settee. “Dunno’,” he admitted. “Radio?”

“Yeah, go on then – fancy a brew?” John inquired, lifting himself up.

Paul smirked cockily. “Oh, you _perfect_ housewife, you,” he purred as the older boy glared at him. He sighed softly. “Yeah, right, if you’re gonna’ do one – have we got teabags in?”

“Yeah, Stan gave me some before we left in case there weren’t any when we got here,” John called back, but Paul didn’t reply because John had already disappeared behind a wooden door which presumably lead to the kitchen.

John and Stanley had been completely accurate in saying that the house was in the middle of nowhere. It was almost perfectly isolated – stuck right in the middle of a vast stretch of farmland. There were two or three other cabin-like houses around them, but there was no telling whether or not they were currently occupied. It was quite eerie, actually, but still very peaceful. You could hear the sea from the front of the house because the bay was just over the fields, and any cars zooming past were few to none. It was a whole new world from Liverpool, with its black fogs and busy, rowdy streets.

Paul kicked his shoes off and relished the soft, soothing feeling of the furry rug beneath his feet when he slid across it and crouched down in front of the record player and the radio.

Quite to his surprise, the radio kicked into action with pleasant ease. It wasn’t _that_ old then, Paul deduced, unlike the rest of the furniture. The meter lit up and the soft crackles of static travelled to Paul’s ears and hit off the walls all around the room.

It was a pleasant sound, Paul thought – the static. When it filled the space around him, he always thought it was a little bit like hearing extracts of sound from a parallel universe seeping through to you. At that thought, Paul smiled. It was a bit like where he and John were hiding away, then – in their own little piece of nowhere.

Official radio stations were proving difficult to pick up on, though – any channels Paul was able to find were almost all inaudible.

He sighed and just left it on the only one that seemed to be working. A heavy Scottish accent filled the small room.

“We ‘ave a slowly agein’ one ‘ere for yew’ listeners tonigh’–” the voice started to say, but at that moment, John shuffled into the room carrying two cups of hot tea, and Paul’s attention was instantly drawn to him.

“You don’t take sugar, do you?” John asked as he settled Paul’s cup on the mantelpiece and he sat down with his own in the armchair directly beside where Paul was still crouched.

“Do sometimes,” he said, just to be factual. He stood up and took his cup in his hand, sipping the steamy liquid with caution. He nodded his head and placed it back where he had picked it up. “It’s fine, that, though. Tah,” he said, smiling down at John, who smiled back and placed his cup on the windowsill over the record player.

He was still smiling at Paul when he started speaking. “C’mere for me?” He pleaded softly.

Paul smiled somewhat sheepishly. John was staring at him now. Although it was so long ago that he had shouted at John for staring at him so blatantly in his living room as Paul played about with his guitar – John watching him intently as he did so – and so much had happened since then, he still felt his whole body react to John’s eyes. Some things don’t change.

With a very momentary pause to regain his breath as his heart skipped a few beats and did a little somersault at the end, Paul obeyed, taking one long step to John in the arm chair.

He gasped softly when John tugged him down and kissed his lips without hesitation, leaving Paul nowhere to go but to sit on his lap as one of John’s arms looped around the small of his back, gripping his waist so he didn’t fall, and the other moved up to cup his cheek gently, not allowing him to move away or break the kiss. Paul smiled against John’s lips and let his eyes flutter shut, losing himself in the sensual feeling of John’s skin touching his.

It was minutes later when a recognisable tune finally came from the almost forgotten radio beside the two of them.

Paul, though not entirely wanting to be the one to end the kiss, pulled back and grinned widely. John frowned.

“What is it?” He asked, sounding partially offended but still completely curious.

“The song,” Paul chimed. “Don’t you recognise it?”

“Uh… yeah, I know the song…” John said slowly, still frowning, his eyebrows connecting inbetween his eyes. “…why? Do you like it?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah,” he said, his tone sarcastic. “But, Johnny, you played this song the day we met.”

For a moment, they let the music be the only important thing in the room – the paramount sound holding all of both John and Paul’s attention. The soft hums and vocal harmonies that John had tried to sing all at the same time passed over, and John was still looking rather beside himself.

Paul’s expression faltered until it matched John’s. “Don’t you remember?”

John nodded. “Yeah, I do now,” he admitted before looking up at Paul as the first verse kicked in. “I’m surprised you did, though – bit romantic of you, that, Paulie,” he chuckled, stroking the small of Paul’s back with his hand affectionately.

Paul shrugged and smiled softly, lifting his own hand and tracing delicate patterns over John’s jumper-covered chest, slowly and softly. “I remember that day really well, you know,” he admitted shamelessly, leaning his head on John’s shoulder. Paul had a faint idea that John couldn’t care less, but he spoke anyway. “You were strumming yer’ guitar too hard; I thought you were gonna’ snap a string, and you did,” he chuckled. “And you made up the words you didn’t know off by heart, and I just – you were so _cool_ , y’know? Like, you had a _band,_ and you paid attention to _me_ that night.” He sighed softly and kissed John’s neck. “I went home really late, too, ‘cause of you. But I didn’t mind much for getting in trouble, not really – I kept thinking, ‘ _will I ever see that Lennon again?’_ ”

At this, John exhaled loudly and sat himself up straight. Honestly, Paul was expecting a firm, ‘ _shut up, Paul,’_ but instead, John was grinning excitedly at him.

“You fancied me from the start, you tart! I _knew_ it!” He yelled triumphantly and grabbed Paul’s face between his hands, snogging him forcefully.

Paul, of course, complied with the powerful kiss, though he was ultimately baffled by John’s reaction to his words. When John pulled away, Paul laughed uncertainly. “You… you _what_?”

John chuckled. “No, sorry, I didn’t _know_ it, but… more… _hoped_ it. Not necessarily straight away but, y’know, pretty soon.”

Paul giggled softly and looked down at the floor. “Penny Lane,” he whispered, trying not to blush at how easily this could turn embarrassing if John realised that Paul remembered essentially every moment spent with him. He lifted his head again. “Was it Penny Lane for you? Do you remember that?”

John laughed heartily and leaned back in his seat. “Yeah! With the chips?!”

“Yeah!” Paul laughed, his eyes widening with childish glee as John’s reaction turned out positive. “Do you remember– oh my God, do you remember that time not long after that stunt I pulled outside Wilson Hall, and we were all copping off at Nigel’s house in the dark and it was your turn to shout out a fit bird’s name, so you said _my_ name instead and just as you called it out it Pete went and spunked everywhere?” Paul laughed loudly and covered his mouth. “Did you ever let him forget that?”

“’Course not – he came at the thought of _you_ , I bet,” John purred and stood up, hauling Paul up with him. “S’not difficult.”

Paul stumbled back until he was stood on the rug again and John followed him, smirking wolfishly. Paul just smiled. It was funny to be reminiscing over such silly little things – there had been so many moments that were so significant, so many things that you could call epic milestones in the complex John and Paul equation, but to remember the miniscule moments just to spark a smile is another thing entirely.

“What you doing?” He asked as John kept walking towards him and he instinctively stumbled back, grinning crookedly at the older lad.

John just smirked, a slightly wild edge to it. “… _I need you, darlin’…”_ he picked up from where the radio was up to with the song, and when Paul elected to stop backing away from the older boy, John cupped Paul’s cheeks so that their faces were barely inches apart and they were staring somewhat passionately between brown and hazel.

“ _So come go with me…”_ this time, the two of them sang in harmony – Paul hadn’t felt anxious about singing in front of anybody for a very long time, but for some inexplicable reason, joining in on that last line with John so close made him tingle all over, and he sang the line out in a slightly sheepish whisper. John just smiled at him.

At the fête, John and The Quarrymen had been unable to perform the doo-wop instrumental dance sequence like the one in the actual record due to a lack of required instruments. But it was probably Paul’s favourite part of the whole song, so when it kicked into full action, he grinned confidently, forgetting all anxiety, remembering that the two of them were sheltered away from the rest of the world and, in fairy-tales, there’s always a happy ending waiting for you.

“What are _you_ doing?” John laughed out when Paul gripped both of his wrists and placed them securely on his own shoulders, then pulled John closer to him by his waist.

Paul answered by tightening his grip on the hips he was holding and started swaying John in rhythm to the cheery music, a simple waltz sort of thing – Paul taking lead in the _forward step, side step, back step, side step_ routine, with John following accordingly.

John didn’t ease into the dancing easily, and Paul bellowed with laughter when John gave up with a groan and brought his hands down from Paul’s shoulders, yanked Paul’s off his waist and tangled their fingers together in tight, fleshy knots. John howled like an excited wolf as he spun around, their hands still connected, leaving Paul no choice but to do the same and twirl away from John. When they returned to facing each other, John just repeated the twirl in the opposite direction, leaving Paul pleasantly dizzy as the music picked up pace once again and the two lovers stayed holding hands, cosmic energy passing through their bodies like blood from the heart, connecting them as one soul.

The laughter seemed to last forever. Paul wouldn’t _allow_ it to end; the more he laughed, the more John laughed too, and overall, the happier they _both_ felt.

And to Paul, it seemed the song itself never officially ended either.

He didn’t really remember it coming to an end, anyway. The next few moments occurred like a tornado targeting one person and spinning them out of control without any warning.

In an instant, John and Paul’s hands were no longer conjoined, and Paul was off the ground, straddling John’s hips with two quivering arms beneath his bum holding him safely against a warm torso. Lips were on his, his eyes closing on instinct at the contact, and when he opened them again, he was being pressed down into a soft mattress, a thick pillow supporting his head.

He grinned then. He felt high on the speed of movement and change – change in attitude, change in mind, change in so much as the room they had moved to. One tiny lamp had been switched and so Paul got a brief second to look around the room, but his surroundings just wouldn’t sink in. He kept on losing himself in John.

His hair looked a lot darker, as did his eyes. They looked greedy and needy but Paul could literally see the _want_ in his eyes, a desire nestled deep within him finally escaping. He looked totally _out of it_ , which made Paul want to giggle, but he didn’t. Couldn’t, even. There was a tranquil moment going on around them, and he dared not break it up. Caught up in all of the raucous and madness of lust, John and Paul both stopped completely in their tracks, panting loudly over each other, John kneeling almost protectively over Paul.

There was an honesty in John’s face that Paul could never forget even if he tried – he _knew_ that John. That was _his_ John.

Paul watched with wide, dreamy eyes as John licked his tongue over his lips once, and then pressed them against Paul’s in a quick, swift movement.

“I love you,” he whispered; the words came out of his mouth very slowly, crackling in his throat. They sounded like they were filled with some sort of pain, like there was an emotion buried deep within them that was far more than just a casual, _‘love you.’_ He wanted Paul to know how much he _meant_ it.

The side of Paul’s aquiline nose gently brushed against John’s; a brief, reassuring touch that Paul knew John needed.

“I love you,” he was hasty to reply – no hesitation, because Paul was so certain of his love. He _knew._

The silence around them was just as meaningful as words. Simply the steady, familiar sound of heavy breathing passing between them was comforting. Paul leaned up towards John, his hand cold on the back of John’s pleasantly toasty neck, the tips of his fingers hidden beneath John’s currently scruffy hair.

Paul had full power over the kiss – he let his tongue trace over the outline of John’s lips leisurely before he nibbled on the sensitive skin softly and affectionately, all but forcing John to open his mouth for Paul to enter with his tongue, their lips slamming together hotly. John sheepishly moved his tongue against Paul’s, the two of them moving with ease as Paul weakened John further by tickling the top of the back of his neck with the icy, rough tips of his fingers, causing the older of the two to collapse, the arms holding him up lowering haltingly so that he was almost lay completely flat on top of Paul.

Paul recalled many special memories with John; up until that moment, he hadn’t had a decisive favourite.

They stayed like that for a while. Just kissing, calmly and leisurely as they pleased to, John allowing himself to fall further so that his stomach was firmly pressed against Paul’s.

Paul gasped when he felt fingers touching the skin above his waist line. He looked at John questioningly.

 _"Off,”_ John growled headily, kissing the corner of Paul’s lips. “Please.”

Without further ado, Paul sat up and removed his jumper so hastily that barely a second had passed, and once the clothing was thrown to the floor, John kissed Paul again, his hand moving over the pale skin of Paul’s body.

Paul frowned. “You too,” he pleaded, his fingers travelling to the bottom of his lover’s own jumper, trying to lift the fabric off him.

John whimpered and shook his head, proceeding with his technique of trying to shut Paul up using his lips.

Unsuccessfully.

“Johnny,” Paul whined, tugging at the material stubbornly. “Please, I need this– _you_. I need you.”

Paul knew why this was happening now. _Don’t ruin this, babe,_ he kept on thinking, as though John could read his thoughts. John was always reluctant when it came to undressing himself in front of Paul, with his upper half in particular. Paul didn’t pretend to not know why – John hated his body, and nothing Paul could say or do would have changed that.

That didn’t stop him from trying.

When John ignored Paul’s requests a second time, Paul hooked his foot around John’s ankle and flipped him over onto his back so that the two swapped positions, Paul on top of John.

John’s face paled in the pitiful lighting of the room.

“Paul,” he croaked out as the younger shuffled down the bed towards John’s waist line. “We don’t have to– I mean, please just _don’t,_ I–”

“John,” Paul said firmly, shutting the older up in an instant. “It’s only me.”

John stared down at Paul. There was a long moment of waiting, as if John was testing Paul to see whether or not he’d give up. He didn’t. So John nodded his head hesitantly. “I know.”

Paul smiled softly. “ _You know_ ,” he whispered, and he lifted up John’s jumper just over his belly-button.

The second the fabric was lifted, John’s stomach went stiff and rigid as he sucked it in as much as he could. Paul sighed sadly and tiredly, resting his palm out over John’s stomach and lifting his eyes so that John was forced to look right at him.

“Will you relax for me please, beautiful?” He urged softly; John didn’t comply instantaneously. He stared onwards and, finally, swallowed thickly, resting his head back against the pillow in sweet surrender and relaxing his abdomen.

Paul couldn’t wait any longer. He leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to John’s belly, lingering on the area for a prolonged second before moving around John’s naval, peppering him in little affectionate kisses as Paul’s hands stroked up and down either side of his waist.

Finally, Paul had travelled his way up to John’s chest where the material was rolled up, meaning he could go no further. Instead, he placed his lips over the corner of John’s, let it linger very briefly, and then tugged John’s jumper up over his head and off to the floor.

And there was John below him, topless and in something of a preciously vulnerable state.

Suddenly, Paul craved skin-on-skin, and he daren’t deny himself of it. He pressed his own naked torso against John’s and kissed his lover passionately on the lips, extracting a whimper from John who flung his arms around Paul, keeping him close with a desperate grip.

A glow of genuine happiness spread over Paul’s face at the feeling of John’s hands all over him – he steadied his own on the mattress and plain white quilt on either side of John’s body, and swiftly grinded his crotch over John’s, the fabric of their jeans keeping their skin apart, but the movement was applied with just enough pressure to elicit a powerful feeling that both recognised well as arousal.

It took merely a few more slow grinds before Paul felt John’s hardness pressing against his thigh and he smirked triumphantly, pulling his mouth off John’s and laughing darkly when John whimpered at the loss of touch.

Paul shook his head at John, who nodded and leaned back in anticipation for whatever Paul had in mind for him.

To Paul’s relief, John was not wearing a belt that day and so unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans was a pleasantly easy and a quickly completed task.

There was no reluctance when Paul swiftly removed the rest of John’s clothing, chucking them to the floor with ease. He chuckled when John quirked an eyebrow at him, and Paul sighed, like he too could read John’s mind. He stood for a moment on the floor, unbuckled his belt and let his underwear and jeans fall to the ground around his ankles.

He crawled back onto the bed and opened John’s legs slowly before he settled in between them, smirking hotly at the sight of John’s erection up so close.

John groaned. “Macca, baby, if you’re gonna’ just stare at it then– oh, _fuck_ , Paul!”

Before John could finish talking, Paul had covered the head of John’s cock with his lips and was suckling softly on the sensitive skin there, twirling his tongue around slowly and flicking it over the delicate tip.

Paul could hear John gasping for breath above him, his heart rate evidently increasing severely.

Although it wasn’t the first time Paul had given John head, it still felt like a new, riveting experience. It was something like a drug to Paul – the strong, musky scent of John’s manhood filling his nostrils was an overwhelming sensation; it made his head spin lightly. But it was good – Paul _liked_ it, he’d go as far to say. _Craved_ it.

“More,” John demanded, his voice sounding painfully weak. “Jesus, Paul, _more._ ”

Paul hummed softly in reply, a rather cocky reaction to John’s demands, as he knew the vibrations the sound created through John’s length would drive him _mad._ But he wasn’t cruel – he wrapped his hand around the base of John’s cock, his grip firm but not too tight, before he pumped upwards slowly, feeling the pull of John’s foreskin against his tongue. That turned him on. The way he could feel how John’s body worked with such pristine detail when they were in positions such as that was stimulating in a beautifully _dirty_ way, like Paul somehow knew that he was the only one to be paying attention to these parts of John’s body with such perfectionism.

He heard John moan from above him when he forced his arm, aching already, to pump John’s cock faster; he slid his mouth further down the shaft, engulfing as much of John as he could do past his lips.

He wished he could look up – see John unravel his senses completely in the brief, restricted seconds of sheer, treasured pleasure. But, unfortunately, it hurt Paul’s eyes to force them upwards, so he closed them instead, focusing on John’s pleasure rather than his own desires.

He was fairly sure that they could be tended to soon after.

John’s erratic breathing sped up drastically, and Paul just spotted the way his hands were clenching and unclenching on the bedcovers beneath them before his eyes closed and he moaned over John’s cock and twisted his wrist with the last few pumps before there was a wet hotness hitting the back of his throat and a hoarse call of his name from the man lay below him.

Paul waited patiently until John’s hardness softened slightly before he pulled away, wiping the corner of his mouth of John’s cum.

The older boy was staring at Paul, his head swaying. Paul grinned as he tried to push aside the demanding, salty taste of John still travelling down his throat.

John laughed, though it came out choked and hoarse and probably exhausted – his eyes were already half closed behind the lenses of his glasses that had, somehow, remained on his face until that moment when John took them off, placing them on the little table beside the bed without much regard for them.

Paul blushed softly when he followed John’s eyes to his own erection, and he swallowed thickly, hoping to _God_ he wouldn’t have to finish off by himself.

He licked his lips uncertainly. “Uh… are you tired? ‘Cause if you are, I’ll just go clear up in the bathroom or somethin’…”

“Shut up, babe,” John chuckled, patting the empty space beside him, smirking lazily. “Come here.”

Paul nodded his head and his heart rate quickened at the demand, so he crawled over to John on all fours.

John was not one to ‘take things slow,’ so to speak. He grabbed the back of Paul’s knee on his right leg and lifted the leg over his body so that Paul was straddling his chest and was unable to move, for quick as a flash, both of John’s hands were pinning his legs to the bed by the backs of his knees.

Paul’s balls brushed softly against John’s chest and he hissed, closing his eyes, readying himself for whatever was to come with blatant need.

He felt John tug him closer forcefully and he stroked his nose down Paul’s belly before pulling him impossibly closer and nuzzling his pubic hair surrounding his dick. Paul felt the slightly chapped wetness of John’s lips graze the base of his cock and he recognised his mouth watering. He needed this fast, before he could no longer bear the arousal pooling around in his manhood.

Paul moaned loudly and carelessly when John’s hands darted from his knees to his arse, gripping the cheeks so tight Paul thought it may have left a bruise, but he didn’t care – couldn’t care less, even. Fuck, he might even have _wanted_ that – wanted John to _brand_ him as his own somehow.

The thought sent shivers down his spine and his cock twitched painfully, the desire overwhelming.

“Johnny,” he breathed, his voice embarrassingly husky. He cleared his throat. “John, fuck, _please_ – ‘need it.”

Finally, he felt John’s hot breath over his skin before lips were around his cock and a tongue was twiddling about his sensitive tip, large, firm hands kneading his arse cheeks and using the flesh to tug Paul closer, and then move him away – John was physically _controlling_ Paul’s thrusts, grinding him into his own mouth and making sure that Paul could lose himself entirely, not to be concerning himself with basic things such as just thrusting his hips.

It was complete ecstasy – John knew what he was doing with Paul, meaning that the younger could trust John with his body so easily he could simply let himself go.

John moaned on Paul’s cock and quickened the pace at which his hands controlled Paul’s hips, the faster speed urging Paul closer to his climax, and s _hit –_ there was a harsh burning in the pit of his guts and he couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“ _F-u-u-uck,”_ he whimpered, biting harshly down on his bottom lip and clenching his eyes closed as his hands found John’s slightly curled locks of hair and he drove his cock deeper into John’s mouth with _one, two, three_ final thrusts in a speedy sequence as he finally spilled himself out into John’s mouth, the shock of pleasure blinding his sight and cutting his hearing short with a high pitched echo filling his ears.

When he caught up with his ragged breathing, his eyes widened and he pulled out from between John’s lips with realisation of what he’d just done.

“Shit!” He yelped, moving so he was kneeling beside John, a panicked look on his face. “I didn’t pull out! Fuck, John, I’m sorry, I just–”

Paul stopped then.

John had never willingly allowed Paul to cum in his mouth, and Paul could understand why, ideally – he let John do it to him out of, mostly, goodness, and also the knowledge that there was always a lack of hassle afterwards when you knew where the mess had gone. But John had just never tried it, never really wanted to, and Paul didn’t mind that, usually.

But John was looking at him from where he lay still with his head on the pillow, and Paul watched with intrigue as John flicked his tongue out over his bottom lip and slid it over the chapped flesh slowly, seemingly cherishing it – the _taste_ of _Paul._

Paul’s mouth fell agape.

“That was _hot_ , Paul,” John sighed, his eyes closing as he nodded his head, almost as if he was talking in his sleep. “That was… _fucking hell_ …” John stopped himself from talking more by giggling quietly and finding Paul’s hand on the bed, tugging on it.

Paul, finally, relaxed and fell down, his head resting on John’s chest.

They were both undoubtedly knackered, but the giggles were relentless between the two of them – the second Paul calmed down, John would start again, and then they’d both just end up in the same condition.

Finally, Paul sighed and looked up at John, resting his chin on the elder’s shoulder.

“Y’know what, Johnny?” He breathed out unevenly, a lazy grin spreading over his cheeks as he craned his neck upwards to face John.

“What’s there to know, Paulie?” John replied, smirking back somewhat lovingly as he held Paul closer.

“I’ve got a really good feeling about this holiday,” Paul mused, nodding his head confidently. “…And I think our brews have gone cold.”

John laughed once more, a heart-filled sound, and kissed Paul once on the lips, still making Paul’s heart dance and pound madly in his chest, _after all this time_.

“Y’know what, Macca?”

“What’s that, Johnny?”

“I’ve got a really good feeling, too.”


	10. Chapter 10

There was a weighty feeling of something digging into his chest when Paul finally woke up the following morning. At first he thought that he had slept in a funny position and the strange sort of aching was the aftermath of his joints being bent oddly, but as his nerves and awareness gradually woke up, he realised that it was undoubtedly the feeling of an object of some sort leaning on him.

He carefully opened one eye, peeping out into the soft morning light to see John, baggy eyed and scruffy haired, leaning his chin on Paul’s chest, staring at him intently like a pet waiting to be fed.

Paul resisted the urge to smirk and quickly snapped his eye closed again.

Apparently, it was not done without John noticing.

“Paul,” John whispered urgently, shaking his head slightly to rock Paul’s chest side to side. “Paulie, don’t ignore me anymore,” he pleaded, and then paused, waiting for Paul to react. Paul just shut his eyes tighter, feigning deep sleep. “C’mon; I _know_ you’re awake, Macca.”

At the sharp feeling of strong fingers jabbing him in the ribs, Paul cringed, biting down hard on his bottom lip to prevent a grin from spreading over his face. He didn’t know exactly why he kept his sleeping façade up, but the idea of playing a little game with John first thing in the morning made him want to laugh – made him anticipate the rest of the day with a fun feeling bubbling about in his heart.

John sat up so that he was kneeling beside Paul’s body, dragging the white covers off the younger boy and then returning his long fingers to Paul’s torso, trailing them up and down over his stomach, sides and chest, tickling him excruciatingly slowly.

John deliberately moved _so_ slow, it was almost torturous. Paul felt determined to keep his eyes shut and his expression contently placid in his fake slumber, but every time John tickled down Paul’s sides, he’d grin madly and a giggle would inevitably escape his mouth.

“Stop ignoring me, you beautiful git!” John yelled, a laugh in his raw, tired, morning voice. He leaned down and pressed his lips against Paul’s parted ones; Paul was still giggling when John kissed him, but try as he might he couldn’t _really_ stop himself, so he _tried_ to kiss back; puckering his lips weakly, smiling against John’s mouth and wrapping one arm over John’s shoulder, tugging him down on top of him by the back of his neck and holding him close and intimate, grinning more when John groaned deep in his throat at the forceful gesture.

They remained like that for a few minutes; smiling against each other’s lips, kissing as their hands set out on touching and feeling everywhere they could reach. Eventually, John rolled over and dragged Paul with him – Paul, still sleepy and consciously distorted, felt dizzy at the very sudden change in position, but proceeded to kiss John anyway, settling a bare knee between John’s thighs and lying on top of him, a hand in John’s hair, their legs tangled together in the bed sheets.

 _What a thing to wake up to,_ Paul thought happily as he deliberately softened the kiss to a loving, gentle touch.

Then he pulled away.

His face scrunched up with the remembrance of reality, and he opened his eyes to stare down at John.

“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” he announced, frowning in disgust.

John chuckled. “So what? Neither have I. Not like we’re dirtying one another.”

Paul cringed and groaned, rolling off John slowly and lying down next to him, pulling the bed sheets over his body again. “You’re disgusting,” he said, shaking his head.

“Oh, shut up, you fairy,” John droned, rolling his eyes and sitting up.

Paul finally grinned and leaned up on his elbow, looking at John as the older boy pulled his Y-fronts on.

“Where you going?” He asked curiously.

“Kitchen,” John replied, hopping around the bed and ( _probably deliberately_ ) picking up Paul’s jumper to throw over himself rather than his own. “Starving. Want anything?”

Paul yawned and rested his cheek against his fist, watching John prance around the room searching for his socks. “What have we got in, Master Chef?”

John chuckled. “Uh, bread, milk,” he said. “And… teabags…” he finally stood up straight, having succeeding in finding and putting on his socks; he grinned at Paul, bowing down jokingly, as if Paul was royalty. “Only the widest and most valuable variety for you, my love.”

Paul sighed, disappointed. “ _Grand_ ,” he droned sarcastically, slumping back down into the pillow. Then he smirked.

“Hey, Johnny?” He called out when John opened the door and was about to wander out to the kitchen. John spun around; an innocent, oblivious and curious look on his face when he met Paul’s eyes.

“Hm?” He returned, raising his eyebrows, baffled by the cheeky smirk Paul wore.

Paul leaned up on his fist again and teasingly lowered the sheets further down his hips until the dark trail of hair leading down to his dick was completely revealed. He watched with pleased amusement as John’s eyes trailed down Paul’s torso, and the older boy gulped dramatically.

“Uh… don’t suppose you’ve got, uh, mornin’ wood or anythin’?” He asked, sounding somewhat hopeful.

Paul giggled and shook his head. “Nah,” he admitted, shrugging. “That little bit of teasin’ was a last minute decision – what I was really gonna’ ask was: how long were you staring at me sleeping for, eh?”

When the question finally left Paul’s lips, John’s eyes snapped back to meet Paul’s and a faint blush appeared over his cheeks. “Uh – I, uh… Oh, shut up,” he eventually managed before slinking away out of the door and down the hall, leaving Paul unable to stop him.

Paul laughed loudly and lay back down comfortably again. “Love ya’!” He yelled after him.

“Piss off!” John called back.

***

Paul argued that before doing anything else, they should both travel down to a newsagents or a post-office or _anywhere_ nearby that could provide them with some food, granted they had near to none in the house.

John, albeit rather sluggishly, agreed, and they set off on a long walk to the tiny village on the outskirts of the farmland.

It was funny listening to John waffle on as they walked – every lane, every little cobble path, every _tree_ seemed to bring back a memory to him, many of which were probably long forgotten beforehand.

As they strolled through the puddles over the one cobble path leading into the village, John started to chuckle to himself.

Paul raised his eyebrows in interest, because he _was_ interested – the thought that there was so much more to John than he could ever truly know was exciting yet frightening all at once, and any stories John told him he would listen to with intrigue. In a way, he was still the same boy from the fête; in awe of John, wanting to know more, wanting to learn.

It scared him knowing that there was a life before John, a time without him; that before him, John had a life of his own, a life without Paul; “ _How goes, Ivan? Who’s your mate?”_ were the exact words spoken the day they met, and when Paul remembered them, he almost always allowed a shudder to ripple through his body like shockwaves; _he didn’t know who I was,_ Paul thought. _I didn’t know who he was._

_How many worlds away is that from now?_

John’s voice took Paul out of his copious thinking.

“It’s funny – comin’ back, I mean,” he mused, staring at the area around him, taking in the sights of the tiny old market shops coming up ahead of them. “It’s sort of like taking a step back into another time. Does that ever happen to you? When you visit places from yer’ childhood or whatever?”

“No,” Paul answered, shaking his head. “Not, like, physical places to _go_ to, anyway. I get… sort of nostalgic, maybe, when certain little things happen, or when I look at something in particular.”

John turned his head to grin at his younger friend. “Go on then – like what?”

Paul smiled. _Your eyes,_ he thought to himself, but daren’t speak it aloud. _They take me home every time I look into them. They take me to_ you _._

He sighed and shook his head. “Nah,” he mumbled, looking at the soggy ground below him. “Doesn’t matter.”

John, surprisingly, didn’t press matters any further.

Instead, they went ahead with their shopping plan – though most unfortunately, John had a disruptive tendency to somehow destroy everything he touched. The sly, swift shoplifter of the past was entirely forgotten when John let out his thoughtless, clumsy side; knocking over a rack of postcards or breaking a whole damn shelf.

Both of which he managed to accomplish in the newsagents that day.

Paul was browsing some different offers on cheap chocolates when it happened, and he didn’t even have to look up to know that John was the one to cause it.

If the loud bellow of “ _Shit a fuckin’ brick!”_ was not informative enough anyway.

Paul sighed and left a little bit of money on the counter before the old lady working there could shout anything at them, and they both sprinted out into the village and down the same paths they used to get there until they could run no more; they returned to just walking slowly, Paul struggling to carry the single plastic bag that held all of the food.

Paul glared at John most of the way home, trying his hardest not to laugh.

John, however, laughed the whole way.

_Of course._

           

“Hey, d’you wanna’ go to the beach?” John asked Paul once he had finished stocking the tinned items into a random cupboard in the kitchen.

Paul stared at John like he had just asked him what year it was.

“The _beach_?” He repeated incredulously, frowning and then sighing. “Jesus, I _knew it_. I’ve gone for the crazy one. I _had_ to go queer for the fuckin’ loony-bin, didn’t I?”

John just chuckled and, after closing the cupboard door, slid smoothly across the cold, tiled floor over to Paul, standing behind him and looping his arms around his waist, resting his hands on the younger’s chest, tucking him in close, protective.

Paul smiled softly beside himself, instantaneously tranquil in John’s arms. He closed his eyes and, almost on instinct, moved his head to the side to rest on John’s shoulder when he felt warm lips on the side of his neck, kissing him softly, cherishing him.

“Let’s just go,” John whispered in Paul’s ear, speaking soft, his voice strangely velvet. “To the beach. It’ll be nice.”

“You can’t swim in the sea, John,” Paul argued, sighing. “You’ll freeze to death – even without that, you’ll probably get ill.”

“What makes ye’ think _I_ will and _you_ won’t?”

Paul chuckled. “’Cause it’s just my luck,” he answered.

“What, you’re lucky that I always get sick and you don’t?”

“No. I’m _un_ lucky.”

John snorted and leaned back slightly, craning his neck over Paul’s shoulder to see his face properly. “Why would _you_ be the unlucky one?”

“Because I’ll have to look after you,” Paul answered casually, smiling a bit. “And _I_ have to see you feeling sorry for yourself, being all weak and moody. I don’t like it.”

At that, John hugged Paul’s chest tightly from behind, burying his face in the crook of Paul’s neck. “I won’t complain then,” he promised. “I swear; I’ll take it like a man and I’ll stay quiet.” He paused. “That is, if I _do_ get ill.”

Paul laughed. “Right. _If.”_

“So, can we go? Like, now?”

Paul’s heart fluttered at the innocent hope that rang so clearly in John’s voice; it made Paul forget all of his worries. He thought, _no wonder Mimi’s so expertly stern. With that voice, you’d have to be a superhuman to say ‘no.’_

“Yes,” he said finally, giving in to John, as was almost inevitable anyway. He spun around in the embrace and leaned his back against the counter, resting his hands flat on John’s chest and staring up at him. “Whatever – okay.”

John grinned excitedly and kissed Paul’s lips before sauntering off out of the kitchen, an excited spring in his step.

He stopped by the door and spun around.

“Wrap up warm, Paulie!” He yelled, his grin borderline manic.

Paul laughed.

 _He’s the crazy one,_ Paul reminded himself, shaking his head. _Not me. It’s him, obviously._

Obviously.

 

The beach was sandy; Paul expected pebbles, or more so had _hoped_ for pebbles – though the rain had calmed, the entirety of the coast was still damp and soggy and Paul’s winter boots sank into the ground with every step he took like it was quicksand; though, he _felt_ heavy; clad with his bulky, black coat buttoned up to his chin, his hood over his head and his hands in his pockets.

He could feel the bottom of his light denim jeans getting slightly wet, despite having tucked the ends into his boots. He sighed when the crude, salty sea-breeze hit him and the chilled air pinched at his nose and cheeks.

John was next to him. They stood by the edge of the water, watching it touch the tips of their boots before it sank away, back down the shore. The tide was high, and further down the coastline there were large, dark rocks scattered about. Paul watched as the waves, short yet powerful, smacked against them, spattering high into the air before falling down in droplets, like rain, but with an immediate effect.

He turned to gaze out across the sea, mighty and infinite. It was grey and where the waves rolled and crashed there was a line of white froth, continually returning into the shallow depths of the blackness beneath the grey; the sea was faithful. The sea was always there. The sea always returned to the shore.

Then he was reminded of the boy stood next to him, the one that had grown into a man without Paul even having the chance to notice. John was strong; his maturity was slowly catching up to him. _Very slowly,_ Paul reminded himself when John caught his stare; the younger boy smiled softly, fighting against the numbness of his face.

John’s hair was getting too long for him to really be able to tame it like he used to. The slightly damp, maple locks blew wildly in the wind, thinking for themselves. John squinted. He didn’t have his glasses on, and Paul vaguely wondered if that was because he plainly hated wearing them, or if it was because the rain would bombard them and fog them up if he did wear them. Probably the latter, he concluded. John never really minded wearing his glasses in front of Paul.

John’s coat was lighter than Paul’s – a soft, almost camouflage cream colour, spots of the thick fabric turning darker and slightly browner with each spatter of the little waves being blown up by the wind. His jeans were dark, though – dark and tight around his thighs, as always; rolled up in cuffs at his ankles – very _Ted,_ Paul thought. He smiled.

The squints that John’s eyes were changed slightly, softening, his face reluctantly relaxing. His cheeks were pink from the cold. Paul laughed.

“Regretting this?” He asked, nudging John’s elbow with his own.

“No,” John replied without hesitation, shaking his head. “No, I don’t regret anything.”

Paul had a feeling that unlike himself, John was not talking about the beach.

Trying to distinguish the flame that had been forged within his heart at John’s pure genuity, Paul laughed softly and forced himself to return his stare to the vast sea ahead of them.

“There’s time yet,” he pointed out, grinning a little.

“Yeah,” John agreed seriously. “A lot of time.”

There was a silence in which the sounds of the very few seagulls harmonised with the splashing of the waves at their feet.

“It reminds me of her.”

John’s voice, so serious, so placid, shocked Paul. He flinched and jumped slightly to look at him, his eyes soft.

He didn’t have to ask to know who John was talking about.

It was strange – Paul’s mother had died _years_ before, and though it hurt to think about, he often just refused to think at all. He guiltily knew that sometimes, he merely _forgot._ He lay in bed a few nights before they had made the journey to Scotland, closed his eyes ready to let sleep consume him, and then realised. _I haven’t thought about her today._

It was frightening and worrying all at once; he wondered, _what if I forget_ everything _about her?_

At the same time, it was comforting. The pain doesn’t last forever. The pain may return occasionally, but it is not a permanent part of you. It cannot control your whole life if you don’t give it the power to.

He would forget that John was not over two years down the line of a loss. Julia had only died a few months prior. It was still a _very_ fresh wound, and he was still a broken heart not yet mended.

Paul swallowed thickly. “W-why did you want to come?” He asked uselessly, a concerned tremor in his voice. “Did you _know_ that it would remind you of her?”

John looked at Paul softly. “I feel closer to her,” he said, shrugging sadly. “And, uh, no. I don’t regret it. I think I needed this.”

Paul smiled. It was a relief knowing that John had done something for himself, _finally_ done something and understood that it was helpinghim. He may have been broken, but he was gradually mending. And that’s all Paul could really ask for at that point.

Then John smirked playfully. “I’m glad it’s you and me,” he said, alarming Paul by looping his arm through the gaps between Paul’s arms and his coat, wrapping his hands around Paul’s waist and pulling him close, pressing their forehead together. Paul went rigid where he stood. “I’m glad this is with you. I needed you.”

“Johnny–”

“Don’t worry,” John whispered soothingly, the hot breath on Paul’s face a welcoming sensation due to the icy state his body was in. “Nobody’s around. It’s you and me and that’s it. That’s all it is. _We’re_ all there is.”

Paul’s breath hitched at the recklessness of their intimacy. He knew that John was probably right. It was nearly Christmas, the middle of winter – they were staying in a desolate area as it was and the likelihood of anybody being idle enough to go to the beach on a day like that was slim to none. Still, it was a riveting sensation. They were not huddled close together on a dark corner of the docks, hiding in their own shadows. They were not disguised by the walls of an alleyway, or beneath the covers of their beds, doors locked, curtains drawn.

It was the purity of freedom; it was the right to be stood in open air, not shaming away from the rule of society – the rule of the _government._ The government couldn’t touch them there. _Nobody_ could touch them there.

It truly was just the two of them. _And that’s it_.

Paul raised his freezing hands to cup John’s cheeks. John hissed comically at the contact, as it merely added to the frosty air around them. Paul chuckled.

“I know,” Paul said, assuring John that he was calm. That he was happy.

John snorted. “We say that a lot,” he mused. “Is that, like, our ‘ _thing_ ’? We always just _know_?” He sighed, shaking his head and subsequently nudging Paul’s, too, granted their foreheads were still pressed together. “You’re just a smartarse sometimes.”

Paul smirked haughtily. “I know.”

“Piss off, you shit,” John laughed, and kissed him.

It was different than usual, and Paul wondered if it even mattered, because it didn’t feel like it did. It felt like being loved. But it had _always_ felt like that, somehow.

When Paul pulled away, he chuckled. “That water looks cold, dunnit?”

John frowned. “No. Looks fucking boiling,” He droned sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “What you on about?”

Paul grinned and nudged John with just enough force to be able to watch as the older lad stumbled into the shallow water, covering the bottom of his high boots.

“You bastard!” John called; at first, he looked shocked. Then he smirked dangerously.

Paul laughed.

“You better _run_ , pretty boy,” John called, kicking the water slightly so that some of it hit Paul.

“You’ll never catch me alive, ye’ barmy ape!” Paul yelled back, curling his accent in order to sound more like the bulky sailors who littered the Albert Docks of a day time. There was a roar of rage from John; Paul laughed loudly, running down the beach, his feet sinking into the ground leaving a trail of footprints behind him, the patter of the water beneath his feet, no deeper than a puddle, splashing as he stomped thoughtlessly in it, giggling manically all the way.

John was behind him, he knew, because he heard his laughter too. It was a beautiful sound to be hearing in the midst of playful madness.

When he felt arms around him, Paul yelped and let out a low pitched scream. John just held onto him tighter around his waist, lifting him up and spinning him around, some of the icy water that John had splashed about in splattering on Paul’s already pink and frozen cheeks.

“I hate you, I hate you–!” Paul chanted untruthfully through fits of giggles when John tugged on Paul’s hips, throwing him about like a ragdoll, leading him further into the water. “John, stop it!” He yelped, laughing and trying to plant his feet firmly into the soggy ground, leaning all his weight against John’s body to stop him from guiding them into the frighteningly cold water.

“What’s that, sorry?” John whispered in Paul’s ear – Paul felt the smirk John wore press against his temple. “You hate me, is it?”

“No!” Paul shouted, thrashing about – he knew he could have got John off him with ease if he tried to, but the fit of laughter he was suffering from was taking up most of his energy. “No, no; I don’t hate you!”

“Well aren’t you quite the indecisive sod today?” John laughed, tickling Paul’s sides now. Paul giggled hysterically and stomped his foot, trying to find John’s to step on it but failing, sending a tall splash of water over both of them instead. “So, if you don’t _hate_ me…?”

“I love you!” Paul screamed from the top of his lungs, clasping at John’s tight grip on his hips to try to get him off. It was only as the words escaped his throat that he realised how wonderful it felt to say it like that. He s _creamed_ it. Not into a pillow, not underlined with a pencil on a worthless piece of paper. He called it out to John, to himself, to the sea. It was the ultimate admittance. “I love you!” He repeated, giggling excitedly.

He hadn’t even noticed that John had stopped with his struggling to get Paul into the water.

The water wasn’t above their boots yet, but they had still been splashed by quite a bit of it, and it _was_ freezing. Paul couldn’t even remember ice cubes feeling _that_ cold. But it didn’t matter, he thought, _not yet._

He spun around, still smiling brightly from the laughter that he couldn’t even really manage yet. “I love you,” he now said calmly; John quirked a cocky eyebrow, smirking.

“ _I know_ ,” he said in a stupid voice, probably trying to imitate Paul.

Paul rolled his eyes, but his smile betrayed his attempt at an exasperated expression. “Yeah, yeah – I know you do.”

“Stop knowing everything then.”

“Stop being so predictable then.”

“Well, it’s hardly my fault you’re so bored of me; I’m doing the best I can to entertain you, y’know,” he chuckled, tangling his fingers with Paul’s numb ones. Paul’s smile calmed into a soft little grin.

“I’m really cold,” he admitted, laughing quietly, feeling rather stupid.

“D’you wanna’ go back?” John asked softly, looking at Paul meaningfully.

Paul shrugged. “Yeah, I guess,” he agreed, then looked at John pointedly. “But do you?”

“I’ll go wherever you want me to, love,” he chuckled, and started to tug Paul out of the water and back onto the dark, wet, soggy sands.

When they had reached the start of the muddy path and returned to the area of grassy patches, John turned back to the sea.

Paul was shocked when _he_ had continued walking and had been yanked back by John, who had been holding Paul’s hand and so had stopped them both in their stroll so abruptly.

John was facing away from him, out onto the beach and into the sea, the blurred horizon so many miles away. Paul slowly stepped back, standing faithfully beside him, refusing to let go of his hand.

“What are you thinking about?” He whispered, but then upon realising what he believed was the obvious answer to the question, he stroked his thumb over the back of John’s hand lovingly and comfortingly. “Julia?”

John didn’t look at Paul, but took a long, deep breath, seemingly clearing his head with the fresh, salty air. “I was,” he answered. “But I’m not anymore,” he turned and looked at Paul, tightening his grip on Paul’s hand slightly. “I was thinking about you.”

Paul smiled softly. He didn’t know how true the statement was. He wouldn’t have wanted to claim John’s heart all for himself– well, he _did,_ but to force John into forgetting about his mum didn’t seem right, and probably was not even the case at all. Paul just didn’t say anything; one place can hold as many memories as you make there, and a new one to add to the balance might have just been what John was looking for. One that didn’t make his heart ache over loss, but more made it swell with hope.

When John turned to walk away, it was Paul who gazed out to the horizontal line of the sea meeting the sky.

He wondered what was out there, beyond the waves, beyond the time they were living in. He wondered who was born in that precise moment, who had died, who was laughing and who was crying and who was sleeping.

Who was in love.

When John tried to drag him into walking again, he concluded it didn’t really matter.

He knew where _he_ was; he knew what was happening in that moment; he knew what he felt, and he knew that John was there with him.

And he certainly knew who was in love.

As far as Paul was concerned, that’s all he needed to know.

***

When they got back from the beach, all they did was dry off, sit and chat, play and eat, just _relax_ – it was rare, when Paul thought about it, that he ever got the chance to just relax – or it wasn’t that he didn’t have the _chance,_ more just because he never particularly wanted to. He liked to be healthily busy, and relaxing often lead to boredom for him.

Relaxing _with_ somebody was different, he supposed. With John especially. When the defensive front was down, and he was calm in the presence of another person, his genuity was a stunning sight to encounter.

And it was easy. They wrote the start of a song that night – they never went back to it, but it didn’t really concern them. It was just something to do more than anything, and Paul had left the beach believing that they really did have all the time in the world, and that nothing mattered but each of them. And it was wonderful.

When they went to bed that night, John curled up behind Paul – the first affectionate contact they had shared since they had held hands at the beach. It felt like the overpowering need of an addiction being fulfilled at long last.

John tangled his legs with Paul’s, his ankles wrapped securely around the other’s.

Paul smiled softly into the darkness, nuzzling into the warmth spooning his back.

“Goodnight, babe,” John whispered, pecking Paul’s temple before falling onto the pillow, still holding Paul against his body.

“Night,” Paul replied with a smile on his face.

_All the time in the world._

That night, Paul was visited – or rather, _re_ visited – by a dream.

It had never come back to him since the first time. And when it had originally occurred, he sort of figured out that it must have just been a trick of the subconscious. He remembered the _clank, clank, clank-_ ing of the stones hitting his window that were turned into the _tick, tick, tick_ -ing of a pocket watch in his hand by his effortless imagination.

But he had thought nothing of it.

Nothing of it until it happened again.

And the second time round, it was _scary;_ this time, John was not stood in his back garden throwing objects at his window to get his attention. There was no _clanking_ in reality to blame for the thinking up of a little golden clock; there was nothing but pure silence when Paul jolted awake in the morning, the room already lit up by the sun behind the thick, grey clouds.

This time, there was no explanation – it just happened again.

The clock cracked, the gold patterns became covered in dints, the arms that had been spinning out of control clicked suddenly and came to a stop.

_Time ran out._

The room was cold and it couldn’t have been any later than nine o’clock in the morning. John was still beside him, he discovered; lay on his stomach, face squashed into the pillow.

For some reason, Paul found himself sighing out of relief. John was there. John was breathing and he was _there_.

But why did it matter?

Because in the short space of a few hours Paul went from believing he had all the time in the world, to having time run out on him – _snatched_ away from him, waking him up to the bitter smell of reality.

He looked at John, so peaceful in his slumber. Paul wondered when the nightmares ended for him, what Paul had been doing when John realised he didn’t _have_ to be sleeping next to him all the time anymore. Didn’t _need_ him; just _wanted_ him.

Paul gulped. His mouth was dry and he desperately needed a drink, but he couldn’t move. The air was too cold and his body was stiff and dreary from being forced awake by his mind, or whatever his mind was trying to tell him.

Trying to _warn_ him.

He breathed shakily and lay back down, pulling the quilt over his chest and lifting a hand to twiddle with a strand of John’s hair, keeping their faces close together, only inches apart. Paul briefly pondered over waking him up, but decided against it. He looked too tranquil – to _at peace_ to disturb.

Paul wondered when John had stopped needing him, and when _he_ had started needing John so much.

Because that’s how it felt. He remembered the way John held him when he fell asleep the night before. _Like an addiction._ He was _addicted._

Paul shuddered, a strange fear rippling through him. _Needing_ a person was dangerous. Needing a person lead to pain, like Paul had needed his mum, like John had needed Julia, even his Uncle George.

Addictions were dangerous.

And addictions, often, had to be fought against.

           

Paul was a little bit out of it for the entirety of the day ahead. He’d gotten dressed and had a cup of tea, sitting on the arm chair in the living room as he listened to John’s Elvis record on repeat; he hadn’t the energy to swap the record back over to the A-Side, ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,’ so Paul would idly place the needle of the turntable back onto the record. By the time John stumbled into the living room (in Paul’s jumper, of course), Paul knew all of the words to ‘My Baby Left Me.’

John yawned and sat on the sofa, watching Paul intently. “What you doin’?”

Paul shrugged and set his teacup (which had been empty for quite a while, but he had held onto anyway) on the windowsill. “Nothin’,” he answered nonchalantly. “Listenin’ to Elvis,” he paused and chuckled softly, unenthusiastically. “Got the words logged now.”

“Oh?” John asked, seemingly impressed. “I’ve been tryin’ to get them for ages! Sing us a bit?”

Paul sighed and restarted the record.

“ _Yes, my baby left me; never said a word. Was it somethin’ I done – somethin’ that she heard? My baby left me, my baby left me, my baby even left me, never said a word…”_

Paul finished singing once the song came to an end and John applauded him, laughing slightly.

“Good one; we can learn that one now,” he said excitedly. “Good bit of bass in it, don’t you reckon?”

“Aye,” Paul agreed, nodding mindlessly.

John frowned. “You’re pale today,” he observed. “Feelin’ alright?”

“Hm?” Paul hadn’t really been listening, and he snapped his head up at being talked to again. “Oh. Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied, smiling weakly.

John didn’t look entirely convinced.

 

They went for a walk later on in the day; through muddy fields of nothing but saturated grounds. The rain had stopped, so they strolled, covered in mud.

As they returned to a flatter stretch of grass, John stopped, frowning.

Paul stopped too. He hadn’t spoken much, spending more of his time thinking. John was staring at him and Paul suddenly turned paranoid.

“What?” He asked worriedly, frowning. “What is it?”

There was a pause, in which Paul expected the worst, whatever the worst could have been.

“You’re taller than me,” John finally squeaked, alarmed.

It was true. Though John was larger in width and character, Paul had been catching up to him on height, and finally seemed to have overtaken him. Only by a few centimetres – but to John, judging by the expression he wore, he seemed to think it was far more than just that.

Paul almost laughed. “…Oh,” he mumbled, shrugging. “Guess I’ve been growing then, eh?”

John smiled, but it was weak and crooked. “Yeah,” he croaked, tangling his fingers with Paul’s as they continued walking. “Just don’t be growing anymore without me, yeah?”

Paul chuckled dryly. “I won’t.”

***

John hadn’t mentioned Paul’s seemingly foul mood, not until about an hour after they finished eating their beans on toast for dinner. It was dark and Paul was slightly tired, his eyes drooping, but he wasn’t quite exhausted enough to go to sleep yet.

John slumped down on the sofa and leaned forward, staring sternly at Paul.

Paul frowned. “What you lookin’ at?”

“You,” John spat. His face was dry and emotionless; Paul felt a twinge of fear surge through him. “You. What’s with yer’ face today, eh? What’s the matter?”

Paul swallowed thickly. “Nothin’s the matter, Johnny.”

“Gobshite,” John spat. “What’s the matter, Paul? Yer’ freakin’ me out.”

Paul shifted uncomfortably in the armchair. “I dunno,” he lied, shrugging. “Just a bit down.”

John sighed and stood up, gliding past Paul and over towards the recently overused record player. The Elvis record was still on the turntable, so he flipped it over to the A-Side and let the music start from the top.

He looked up at Paul softly. “Come with me?” He pleaded, holding out his hand as the music, turned up loud, started to fill the silence around them.

Paul took John’s hand thoughtlessly and stood up, being lead into the bedroom slowly.

His heart was beating fast when John stood in front of him in what had become _their_ bedroom, holding both of Paul’s hands softly with his own.

Paul, feeling his breath start to hitch, focused on the song coming from down the hall.

“ _Hold me close, hold me tight, make me thrill with delight, let me know where I stand from the start; I want you, I need you, I love you, with all my heart…”_

“I don’t want you to tell me why you’re bein’ off with me.”

Paul frowned. “I’m not–”

John interrupted. “Yeah, you are, but it doesn’t matter right now.” John paused. Paul stared at him intently, trying to figure out where the conversation was going, but failing to understand. John sighed. “It’s just… I know we have to head back home soon… and there’s, uh… there are things we haven’t done yet, that I think I’d like to try… now.”

Paul frowned further, completely bemused. “Like what?”

Instead of being granted a verbal answer as he was hoping for, John pressed their lips together, holding Paul by the back of his head to keep their mouths connected.

Paul moaned softly at the sudden action. He kissed back but his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to figure out where John was going with this, what he wanted from him. But whatever it was could wait, he figured, if John was biding the time by snogging him. And Paul was too strung up anyway, he knew. Maybe that’s what he needed. Maybe he just needed to have a little bit of fun, afterall.

So Paul placed his hands on John’s hips and pushed him until the back of his knees hit the bed and he fell backwards, landing on the bed, leaning up on his elbows – he was wearing a red checked shirt, the top few buttons undone, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He _did_ look sexy, Paul thought.

He licked his lips and ushered John to shuffle up the bed until he was at the top and Paul crawled over to him, straddling his hips and kissing him fiercely, clenching his hands around John’s collar to keep the two of them lodged together. John slid his tongue into Paul’s mouth and Paul granted John entrance willingly, tangling their tongues together hotly.

When John hastily cupped Paul’s dick through his jeans, the younger boy hissed and bit down on John’s lip, shamelessly bucking into John’s hand.

John chuckled from below him. “You’re half hard already,” he whispered knowingly, licking over Paul’s bottom lip. “Eager, are we?”

At the words, Paul’s heart twinged uncomfortably, because his first instinct was to say ‘ _I need you, John’,_ all whilstknowing that he couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to be _thinking_ it, let alone admitting it. He knew that before the dream returned, he would have been able to say that sort of stuff – he could say and think whatever he wanted to. But the whole day, all he’d pondered over was his need of John, his lust and his desire and his reliance on a _boy_ who was far from one-hundred-percent stable for him.

Paul just moaned, kissing John’s lips again and rolling to the side, wrapping his thigh over John’s hips and rolling his hips over John’s side, the arousal pooling in his abdomen. He saw John smile softly and awkwardly at Paul’s clinginess, and his heart ached.

Paul was slightly taken aback when John turned his head to the side, looking at Paul meaningfully.

“Have you, uh, figured out what I… what I want to try yet?”

His voice seemed slightly strangled; nervous and hesitant.

If Paul hadn’t got it figured out a few minutes prior, he knew he had it now.

He swallowed thickly and nodded his head cautiously.

“You, uh… I mean, do _you_ want…?” John started, blinking copiously as if trying to wake himself up from a nightmare he’d gotten himself into.

“I don’t know.”

“…Oh.”

Paul licked his lips and forced himself to look away from John, not wanting to see the embarrassment that would undoubtedly be all over his expression. His heart was beating erratically and he was barely able to keep himself calm.

“I mean,” he started again uncertainly. “I’m… uh…”

“Scared?”

“I guess,” he admitted, shrugging awkwardly.

“Me too.”

There was an awkward pause in which Paul lay flat on his back, his and John’s shoulders pressed together as Paul fiddled endlessly with his fingers, trying desperately to relax.

“Do we have anything for it? I mean…”

“Lube?”

“Erm, yeah. That.”

“Well, I _guess_ – we have the Vaseline for my lips? Would that work?”

“Suppose…”

Suddenly, John rolled over to face Paul properly. Paul looked back, breathing deeply, still not wholeheartedly persuaded.

“Paul,” John started softly, resting his hand on Paul’s chest. “Do you remember the first time I kissed you?”

Paul swallowed thickly and nodded his head. Of course he remembered; how could he ever _forget_?

What frightened him was that that was the exact morning after he had his first encounter with that ‘dream of time’, as he had dubbed it, and he felt himself panic a little bit.

“Good,” John whispered. “Do you remember how you smiled before I did it? Do you remember how that’s how I knew that I wasn’t making a mistake? How it helped me be brave and get on with what I wanted to do?”

Paul nodded his head again.

“That’s all I’m asking of you now, Macca,” he soothed. “All you have to do is smile for me right now, and we’ll go through with it. If you honestly don’t want to, it’s fine; you don’t have to say anything, and we’ll forget all about it. We’ll just forget, I promise.”

Paul had a lot of questions.

It was such a _simple_ thing to promise, he thought. _Just forgetting._ But what would that entail? Forget about Paul saying no? Forget about _everything_ they’d done together? Go home and forget they ever shared what they did in the first place?

Paul didn’t know what he wanted.

But after spending the whole day thinking about it, he knew what he needed.

And if time ever runs out, he thought, how soon would the moment come when he wouldn’t be able to say ‘yes’? When would he come to regret being too scared to share something with John that he _knew_ he’d never be able to share with anybody else?

After what seemed like a terribly lengthy few minutes of pure pondering, Paul looked at John, and when he started into his eyes, he knew what his answer was.

He smiled.

John’s face lit up like a beacon of light and hope in a dark hurricane of fear and anxiety and Paul couldn’t deny either of them of this; _them._

John kissed Paul’s lips softly and undressed them both slowly, taking extra time and care to unbutton Paul’s shirt and push it to the floor, making sure he studied Paul’s crotch in particular when he removed the younger’s jeans and underwear.

John didn’t hesitate this time when he removed his shirt or his trousers.

He knew that his self-conscious nature was all insignificant compared to what they were about to share.

John swallowed thickly, and Paul copied his action. He didn’t know enough about what they were about to do to take control of it, but he knew they couldn’t really proceed without getting some things covered through words rather than swimming through it like it was to be forgotten soon after.

Paul sat up and shuffled closer to John – he was sat facing Paul, their bodies either side of each other. Paul smiled tentatively.

“Wanna’ talk first?” He offered sheepishly.

“Yeah…” John agreed softly, nodding his head. “Yeah.”

“Do you, uh, have condoms?”

John’s face paled. “Wait. We need ‘em?”

Paul shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“But aren’t they just to stop birds getting knocked up?”

“I think they’re handy for preventing diseases and stuff too…” Paul paused. “…You don’t have any… y’ _know_ … do you?”

“No, no. I don’t.” John shook his head. “Uh, you?”

“No. I haven’t done enough to… contract anythin’ or whatever…”

“Alright then, good.”

Paul nodded his head and looked down to his lap. His cock had gone limp again, but so had John’s, and it wouldn’t be difficult to sort that out before they did anything. It wasn’t really what he was concerned about.

“Do you think it’ll hurt?”

John paused. “Probably; a little, at least.”

“Ah.”

“Look, if you really don’t wanna’, you can just _say_ –”

“No, Johnny,” Paul shut him up, placing a hand on John’s thigh; he was trying to be brave, he really was. But it was something he’d gone his whole life purposefully trying to avoid even mentioning. “I’m willin’ to try it, I think.”

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

“Fuck me first then.”

At the rather shockingly vulgar outburst, Paul frowned and snapped his head up to stare at John in disbelief. “Eh?”

“You can fuck me first,” John repeated, nodding his head confidently. “You can do it to me and I’ll tell you what it’s like, and if you fancy it then… y’know. We can do it another day with you, maybe, or tonight, whatever. And if you still don’t fancy it, then honest to God I won’t mind.”

“I…” Paul started, but was at a loss for words. Suddenly his sight went slightly blurry in the dim lighting of the room and he swallowed thickly. He didn’t know what he wanted. He trusted John with his own body, knew he _himself_ could handle it, in the end. But if John _couldn’t_ , well, Paul knew he just couldn’t deal with that fate being left in his hands. “John…”

“I mean it,” John added decisively.

Paul looked to John with awestruck eyes, and he thought, _no wonder I’m so fucking obsessed with him._

“…Alright then.”

John smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss Paul’s lips softly before hopping off the bed to, probably, get the Vaseline from the bathroom.

Paul sat comfortably on the bed, trying to breathe easy as he could manage to and relax for John. _For John,_ he reminded himself.

_For John._

When John returned, he was carrying his tub of Vaseline and a towel.

“What’s the towel for?” Paul asked, having calmed himself down enough to speak adequately.

“Oh,” John mumbled, shrugging. “Uh, felt like I needed it. Don’t know.”

Paul chuckled softly, “Right,” he whispered. When John got to the bed, Paul kneeled up to plant a kiss to his lips, his hands stroking through John’s hair soothingly.

“Are you sure about this?” Paul inquired again, watching as John swayed slightly on his feet with his eyes closed, Paul holding him still by his shoulders.

“I’m sure,” he replied softly, nodding his head.

Paul didn’t feel like he had to speak any further. He didn’t have to, because suddenly John was kissing him again, pushing him back down onto the bed and joining him soon after, hovering over him and moving his hand down to stroke Paul’s length until it was fully erect again.

Paul started to do the same to John, and he grinned when he saw John clench his eyes shut and bite down on his lip. John seemed to already have been half-hard from touching Paul, so it didn’t take half as long.

When Paul pulled off John’s lips for breath, he remembered that he still didn’t really know how to go about what they were doing. He took a few deep breaths until John opened his eyes.

“Wh-what do I do now, Johnny?” He asked, knowing he looked as nervous as he felt, which was nothing compared to what John looked like.

John’s arms were shaking as he held himself up and Paul cringed slightly, knowing that what John was trusting him with could be as catastrophic as it was an act of ‘making love’. It was a lot of pressure on him, but it was a lot on John, too.

“Uh,” he croaked sitting up. “Uh, you’re gonna’ have to… stretch me, or something…”

“Oh, like, uh – like, finger you?” Paul stuttered awkwardly, his cock twitching slightly as the words left his mouth.

“Yeah. Finger me.” John repeated, licking his lips like the command was one to be cherished by taste.

Paul sat up and moved out of the way to let John lie down on the pillow, an awkward manoeuvre to achieve as they were both feeling anxious and also overwhelmingly aroused already. Although it was nerve-wrecking, Paul couldn’t stop thinking about it – couldn’t stop himself from repeatedly imagining him fucking John, and John moaning out his name loudly as they came, and it was almost unbearable to comprehend that it was actually about to _happen._

He fumbled awkwardly when he settled between John’s thighs and spread his knees a little wider. He took a deep breath before he reached for the Vaseline, clearing his head of any thoughts that could have made it more difficult than it already was seeming to be.

He dipped two fingers of his left hand into the tub and scraped up a generous amount of the gooey substance, then started to spread it all over his fingers with his other hand, making sure to lubricate everywhere he could cover.

Once successful with the lubricating of his fingers, he forced John’s thighs slightly further apart.

“You’ve gotta’ relax, you know,” Paul said factually, tracing his dry, right hand over John’s cock. He didn’t look up to see John’s facial reaction, just kept his eyes downwards, focusing on the task at hand.

John did as he was instructed, anyway. He relaxed into the mattress. Paul wanted to tell him that it would all be alright and that Paul could never hurt him, but he didn’t know exactly how true that would be, granted he was completely uncertain of what he was doing anyway.

“Ready?” He whispered instead, moving his fingers down past John’s cock and balls and down towards the dip where his arsehole was, circling the tight muscles and pressing down softly. It felt nothing like a bird’s cunt, he discovered, but that was hardly surprising.

Paul felt the bed shake as John nodded his head.

He didn’t want to hesitate further, for fear of one of them freaking out and changing their minds, making one another feel even more awkward and unsure than they already did.

He pressed his wet index finger through the tight muscles of John’s hole, and waited for them to unclench for a second, because John’s instinctive reaction to the invasion had been to go completely rigid.

Once John relaxed, Paul continued to slide his finger in, making sure to rotate his wrist slightly to actually have a stretching effect on the small tunnel into John’s body.

Paul looked up after a moment of incessant probing to find John’s eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown.

“What’s it like?”

“…Weird,” John managed through a very strained voice.

“Doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“Did at first. Not now.”

“Do you want me to put another one in?”

There was a long pause in which John clearly pondered deeply over the question, mostly likely caught between the want of curiosity but the natural rejection of pain.

“Yeah,” he finally croaked, nodding his head.

So Paul obliged, inserting a second finger through the tiny ring of muscles. When Paul heard John hiss sharply at the stretching intrusion, he _almost_ pulled out. He panicked, but John must have felt him shudder and start to retract his arm, because then John’s hand was trying to reach down to touch Paul, but he failed to reach far enough, so Paul just stared at him, not daring to move.

“Don’t stop it yet, Macca,” he whispered huskily, clearing his throat. “I still want to try. I need to know.”

Paul wasn’t sure how far he could trust John’s willingness to proceed with it – he may have been curious, which is understandable, but he didn’t know if that was a good enough excuse for John to use if he ended up seriously hurting himself, _Paul_ seriously hurting him.

He heard an impatient cough sound down from higher up the bed and Paul shook himself of his dangerous habit of over-thinking everything and continued with pushing his long, slim fingers into John, wiggling them about as he did so and then holding them there.

“Right. Now move,” John ordered.

Paul didn’t question the demand. He retracted his fingers before pushing them back in again, scissoring him easily and slowly, stretching the tight tunnel suffocating his fingers.

John gasped slightly, though Paul didn’t know if it was from pain or from pleasure; he simply presumed it was pain, and he flinched when he first heard it.

“Paul, please just calm down,” John panted softly. “Get on with it, will you?”

“Right,” he coughed out, speeding up his movements slightly to fulfil John’s request.

There were a few minutes in which Paul kept his pumps steady and his fingers exploring, his arm starting to ache. He had to stop very suddenly when John yelped, “Stop, stop!”

Paul halted and his eyes went wide from both fear and embarrassment.

“Did I do something wrong?” He squeaked pitifully. “Did I – did I hurt you?”

John sighed. “No, you sod,” he breathed. Paul frowned, confused, when John found Paul’s dry hand and tugged on it until Paul fell beside him, his body half on top of the older boy’s, his dick rubbing against John’s hip.

John wrapped one arm around Paul’s shoulders and tangled their fingers together with his spare one, holding their hands together over John’s chest. Paul’s chin was nestled into John’s shoulder and he peered up at him through his slightly curled hair, his mouth hanging open with wonder and the returning of the ‘overwhelming arousal’ from a few minutes earlier.

John kissed Paul’s forehead firmly, forcefully squashing his lips against the skin.

“I stopped you because I want you to fuck me now,” he whispered into Paul’s hair. Paul tightened his grip on John’s hand at the announcement. “Alright?”

“Okay,” Paul retorted in an obedient way, nodding his head and sitting up again. It was like the words strung a very powerful chord within him, regaining his willingness and his own secret desire. _I want you to fuck me now. I want you. I want._

John wanted this. The least he could do was just _give it_ to him.

Paul moved and kneeled back up, ready to settle between John’s legs again, but when he placed his hand on John’s knee, John spoke again.

“Wait,” he said, sitting himself up. “I don’t – uh, I wanna’ lie on my stomach when you do it.”

Paul frowned intently, bemused by the strange, random request. “Why?”

“Erm,” John stumbled, frowning slightly himself now. “I don’t know. I feel like it’d be comfier.”

Paul sighed softly and nodded his head, not wanting to deny John of something he clearly needed in order to get on with it. Somewhere, though, Paul knew there was far more to John’s request than what John implied. John, despite knowing it _was_ allowed, hated showing weakness. If this hurt and Paul could see it so clearly on his face, then it would be no use to lie and put a front up. This was more than just being naked; this was a form of nudity and intimacy they had thus far been able to avoid. It was real. It was _them_.

Paul waited patiently for John to roll over onto his stomach and place his head in the pillow. He noticed that John had kept hold of the towel and was putting it near his mouth – he realised that the reason John had brought it at all was to bite on it. In case it hurt too much.

_How comforting._

He gulped a little before he finally felt that he could move and shove John’s thighs apart, kneeling between them.

He grabbed the Vaseline off the table again and started to coat his cock in it, gasping slightly at the smooth, easy feeling of his own hand pumping at his hard dick. His mouth watered; he was about to put that _inside of John._ And John had _said_ that he _wanted_ it.

Paul made sure to top up on his fingers just to circle John’s hole with the lubricant once again, hoping to make the entrance as easy as he possibly could for himself and for John.

He swallowed thickly.

“Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

“If I hurt you, will you tell me so?”

“If you hurt me, I’ll kill you.”

“John, I’m being serious.”

“Right, yes. I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?”

“…Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

With a long, uneven breath, Paul held his lubricated cock and steadied it so that the tip was poking against John’s hole.

After a long pause in which he silently reassured himself that this would _all be okay,_ Paul started to push slowly into John’s shocking tightness.

The feeling was blinding. He saw nothing but bright, unclear light when he pushed his whole tip inside of John; for a moment, he couldn’t even think thoroughly. All he could focus on was the monstrous throbbing pulsing through his length and down to the tip of his dick.

He blinked a few times, trying to clear his sight of the blurry dots he had started seeing. He remembered John. He saw him, then – saw his hands clenched around the towel and his teeth clamping down on it, his eyes clenched shut.

 _Liar,_ Paul thought. _He was never gonna’ tell me anything about any pain._

With a strained sigh, Paul settled his hands on John’s arse cheeks and started to push through further, watching in ecstasy as John’s body covered up his manhood slowly, Paul simply slipping into him by that point.

It was warm and tight and strangling, and Paul _knew_ he couldn’t stay still without his cock turning painful. He had to move. _Had to._

“John, am I alright to m– _ove_?” He managed, his voice cracking and breaking noticeably on the last word.

John took a moment to regain his ability to talk efficiently. “Yeah,” he groaned, nodding his head frantically. “Move.”

Paul breathed, and then pulled his hips back slowly, before pressing back in again.

It was difficult to get used to, because it wasn’t like shagging a girl – girl’s open up for you, let you slip in easily, almost pull you in once you get started. John’s body’s initial reaction was to reject the invasion, and Paul guessed that it took a lot for him to ease up enough for Paul to be able to move the way he was trying to at all.

It took a while, but Paul was finally moving at a decent pace – not necessarily fast, but faster than what they started off with. John was silent besides a few quiet grunts, which Paul tried to ignore, believing them to imply nothing but pain.

Paul knew John would be offended and put off if Paul called him out on it, though. So Paul kept on moving, trying to focus on his own pleasure to forget his uncertainties.

Then, a new noise erupted from John when Paul swivelled his hips slightly with his thrust.

“ _Oh!”_ John had yelped, bucking onto Paul’s cock.

Paul moaned at the movement but forced himself to open his eyes and look around to see what was going on, what John’s call had meant.

_“Fuck – fucking hell, oh…”_

“W-what?” Paul stuttered, worried. “What is it? What happened?”

“I… I don’t fuckin’ know, Paulie, but... Jesus _Christ,_ will you just do that again?”

Paul frowned. “What? This?” He swivelled his hips rhythmically again, pushing deep into John.

John thrashed his head to the side and lifted both of his hands to cling onto the pillow his face was squashed against. “Yeah!” He gasped, his bottom half spasming slightly when Paul repeated the action. “Fuck, what the fuck are you doing to me? Oh, Jesus…”

Paul almost smiled triumphantly, though he remained unaware of what it was exactly that was happening to John. He just assumed that it was good.

“S’it nice?” he breathed, moving faster, massaging John’s arse with his large hands. “You like that, Johnny?”

“ _Mmmf –_ yeah,” John replied into the pillow, raising his arse into the air to reach Paul’s quickened thrusts, his initial pain seemingly forgotten. “Fuck, _yes,_ I _like_ it.”

Paul bit his lip and closed his eyes. When he concentrated intently – which was difficult as it was due to his need to release himself – he could feel the tip of his cock rubbing against _something_ inside of John, though he wasn’t sure of exactly what it was. It felt oddly fleshy, but it didn’t have much of an impact on Paul himself. He figured, _that must be what was doing this to John. That’s it. That’s his_ ‘ _spot.’_

It was a relief to know that now John was enjoying it, because Paul had felt rather rejected and wrong to be trying to reach his own orgasm when John was taking the pain for it. But now, John _really_ wanted it. Paul noticed that John groaned loudly each time he pushed into him harder, when he pressed John’s hips down into the mattress.

Paul assumed that, as John was being pleasured from behind, he was still going to be able to cum from it by the friction being caused between his cock and the bed sheets.

This time, Paul moaned. He started to move faster, wanting to make John cum just as much as he had to himself. He pressed John’s arse down into the mattress and nestled his knees outside of John’s, their ankles knotting together.

Paul thrust into John’s arse faster now, as fast as he could move, indulging in the feeling of being inside his lover at last, his mind being cleansed of fears and worries and being replaced with _just_ John.

“ _O-oh_ , fuck, _oh_ , Johnny,” he gasped, pounding into him, his ears ringing with the methodical sound of flesh slapping against flesh.

“Fuck _me_ ,” John moaned, punching the pillow beside his head desperately. “Fuck me, Paul, will you, I- I, _oh–”_

Paul was originally baffled when John’s body went rigid and his tight walls clenched around Paul’s cock again, tugging Paul with him as he thrust into the mattress of his own accord.

Paul realised then.

John came from being fucked by Paul; John was spilling out onto the bed sheets and the feeling of John trying to continue fucking himself against Paul took the younger boy over the edge. He saw a white light glow over his view and he clenched his eyes closed when he bucked his hips into John a last time before he spilled himself into the older boy, emptying himself completely.

He gasped quietly when he pulled out of John and kneeled back; he was out of breath, he didn’t know exactly what to feel about what the two of them had just done together. He thought when it was over it would be easier to come to terms with it, but no. It was still bloody terrifying. It was scary to know John had enjoyed it just as much as it was relieving to know it, too.

But Paul’s curiosity, as John’s had been, was now fully piqued.

He swallowed thickly and lay down next to John, resting his right hand on his chest as he breathed deeply, feeling his chest rise and fall, the sound of his own breathing soothing him slightly

He felt the bed tremble as John turned onto his back, lying flat next to Paul.

Paul felt a hand close around his own and he instinctively clung back, relishing the warmth and the comfort the gesture brought to him. But they didn’t speak after that. They just stayed like that for what felt like hours. Staring upwards, thinking, holding hands.

When John had kissed Paul for the first time, despite John’s promise that it would be their _only_ kiss, Paul had felt assured that it was the start of a beginning, the start of something that would last forever. Because when he got off at the bus stop on the 6 th of July, 1957, he had been almost completely oblivious to a boy named John Lennon, who would be the one to swoop into Paul’s life like the eye of a storm, who would steal the younger boy’s heart, his damn _sanity_. When they kissed for the first time, it was different than the bus stop. It was agreement. It was: _I want this. So do you. This is it. This is us._

When Paul held John’s hand that night, he didn’t feel as though they had just marked the start of something more to what they had shared before. It didn’t feel like happiness, that thing that people associate with that word ‘love.’

It felt like uncertainty. It felt like fear.

It felt like the end.

***

It was remarkably dull the day John and Paul returned to Liverpool.

The rain had persisted for the entire silent train journey back to Lime Street, and then furthermore as they rode the bus to Penny Lane in the dark of a winter night.

But Paul hadn’t seemed to have thought _at all_ for the duration whole day. He barely remembered anything from waking up to getting off at the bus stop and realising that although everything was in juxtaposition to how it once was, it was the first time he recognised the moments that had equalled up into a few of the milestones that created John and Paul’s story so far.

The emblem of what started off the chain of events leading up to where they were now was a little, forgotten bus stop behind a church in a tiny village called Woolton.

But that day, they stood hidden beneath the shadows of the bus stop on the Penny Lane roundabout.

It had all started at one bus stop.

It ended at another.

A different one – a bus stop that was more ‘popular’ than the one in Woolton; one they had both used so often over the years, before and after one met the other. It had meant something to Paul before that day, unlike the one by the church. But then all at once, it meant _everything_.

The last two days of staying in their little piece of nowhere was somewhat ruined by the last hours spent Christmas shopping in the village. It was odd. People were everywhere this time, unlike the way they had avoided any contact to anybody when they had nipped to the newsagents only days before. It was busy, and it was like re-entering reality after almost a week of living in what felt like a form of coma – suddenly, though, it felt like it hadn’t been merely a week. It felt as though the past year and a half had been a whirlwind of wonder and being drunk on another person, being lead to trust in something unreliable.

On the final evening, Paul did a lot of thinking, really. A recurring thought was the memory of Stanley asking John whether or not he and Paul were… well, what they truthfully _were._ He remembered the fear that crippled him so viciously when he heard the question asked. But what freaked Paul out a bit was that it wasn’t surprising. It was like him and John were just a time bomb, ticking away like the clock from Paul’s dreams, and they both knew how destructive they were to the both of them, how they would never end any other way than in pain and in misery for themselves and their family, unless they cut it off before it could get that far.

Paul knew it was over by the way John kissed him.

They stood awkwardly beside one another, both silently knowing what was going to happen when they walked away that night and didn’t bother to look back.

It was John who took hold of Paul’s arms and pushed him forcefully into a dark crevice of one of the walls of the ticket hut behind them and forced their lips together.

Their hands roamed everywhere they could get, taking extra time to harshly comb through the locks of Paul’s hair. It wasn’t a sad kiss. It was an _angry_ one.

It was John being angry at himself and at Paul and for everything that they were throwing away, but for everything that they had started in the first place, too. He was angry because the pain that shines through love was getting to the both of them, and being away and living together for a while was enough to show them that being as close as they were was dangerous, was a threat to both of their futures.

Paul knew that John’s line of thinking was on the same wavelength as his own when they went to bed a little while after cleaning the bed sheets the night of their first… _well._

They didn’t touch each other. They got into bed, they faced opposite directions, and they tried to go to sleep.

Paul knew that John would have been in pain, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. He also knew, though, that John wouldn’t be able to speak to him properly. They both had a lot to consider. Both had to think logically for once, as separate minds rather than one whole movement.

Eventually, Paul had enough of the distance.

With an uncertain sigh, a wavering breath of anxiety but simultaneously some anticipation, he rolled over to face John’s back, spooning him and rubbing his hands over John’s bare chest soothingly.

“I love you so much,” he whispered into John’s ear, trying with all his might not to fuck it up and cry or something pathetic like that. He stroked his foot along John’s calf comfortingly, kissing his temple softly. “I’m… Just – I love you, John.”

Paul tucked John in closer to him when he felt John’s hand settle on top of Paul’s over John’s chest. He heard a sound that sounded an awful lot like a choke on a sob, and Paul had to clench his eyes tightly closed in order to stop himself from joining John in his silent hysteria.

In the silence, two choked words escaped John’s mouth.

“I know.”

Those were the last words said between them that _meant_ anything. Words couldn’t say goodbye, not for the two of them. It didn’t feel right. It felt as though they’d barely just even said _‘hello’_ yet.

Paul wondered whether the anger within John’s kiss was meant for himself or for Paul, but it didn’t really matter until he could think about it another time. He didn’t really _have_ to think, just had to remember what was going on in the moment, in the _ending_.

They forgot where they were – in the dark, wet streets of Christmas time Liverpool, they kissed their goodbye.

Paul pulled away for breath, and found himself looking into John’s brown eyes; the warm, glowing honey-brown colour that signified all that was to be loved.

John’s eyes were no longer welcoming; as Paul’s were wide and searching in desperation for entrance to what started off their catastrophe, John’s were squinted and dark, shallow, like a door had been closed and was trying with all its might to lock Paul out, shutting him away from the labyrinth that had once shone with chocolate brown and honey gold.

And then John grabbed his cases off the floor, and walked away.

Paul, in all his courage, turned, and started to walk in the opposite direction.

He remembered believing that they were living in a fairy-tale; he remembered telling himself that all fairy-tales had a happy ending.

Somehow, they _were_ in a fairy-tale, of sorts. Living with their heads in the clouds and their hearts in a harmonised song.

It was not until he reached the road that, before John came along, he had once called his ‘home,’ that he taught himself a very valuable lesson.

Not _all_ fairy-tales have a happy ending.

Because fairy-tales – they’re not even real.


	11. Chapter 11

When you feel as though you've lost a person you love forever, nothing seems worth anything anymore.

Everything is merely a build-up of figures and steps, leading up the ladder to the rest of your life.

Which  _should_  mean a lot.

It should frighten you into wanting to make every second you spend living  _count_  somehow, so that your life eventually equals up to something fantastic and memorable; so that when you think back on your time in the world, you smile, and you laugh, and you cry – but you cry because you wish you could relive it exactly the same as it was when it happened, and not because you regret something. You should want to make everything  _perfect_.

To Paul, though, it was as though all of a sudden every trace of the light he had once harnessed had left him to rot in a world that was dull and bitter.

He saw John a few days after they got back from Scotland, after the day they had shared their silent goodbye, but their first meeting hadn’t meant anything. They  _spoke,_ yes. They had to. They couldn’t let George see so clearly that there was something wrong between the two of them, something  _secret_. They were performing at George’s older brother’s wedding anyway, so to dampen the mood because of something as trivial as a ‘break-up’ (of sorts) seemed utterly pathetic.

Of course, nothing ever goes to plan with John Lennon.

They’d done all the performing they had promised to do, although it had only been the three of them doing it (no drummer, no pianist – mostly because John, Paul and George had deliberately kept them in the dark from the performance) and by then George was off socialising, chatting with distant aunties and uncles and cousins anyhow. It was just John and Paul then, left to sit at an empty table, facing away from each other awkwardly, Paul gazing out over the guests and sipping his beer slowly, trying to look like he was a lot more comfortable than what he actually was.

He tried taking an interest in some of the guests. There were plenty of girls roughly his age that caught his eye and he couldn't deny that he gave them a little bit more than just  _one_  look-over. But he couldn't get himself to go and talk to anybody; none of them took his fancy  _that_ much.

He just didn't want to look at John.

He had no idea what John was up to behind him. All Paul knew was that he was sat, probably getting more and more drunk with each passing second, on the opposite side of the table with the pretty white linen cloth and a set of fake red roses in the centre of the wooden structure.

Honestly, as far as Speke weddings go, it was a very pleasant one. John hadn’t been too impressed though, Paul knew.

With a heavy sigh, Paul slumped miserably in his seat, shaking the pint glass in his hand slightly so that the ice cubes clanked around and the ginger coloured liquid began to swirl.

He wanted to go home.

He felt useless sat there, doing nothing but  _watch_  people – people who, frankly, meant nothing whatsoever to him. Not even George was in sight. He daren’t look at John. For the first time in his life, he felt completely alone and isolated in a room literally packed with other people. And he  _hated_  it.

He sighed again and lifted his sunken eyes up to gaze over at a petite brunette girl of about fifteen looking right at him, chewing modestly on a straw in a bottle of coke she had already drank.

Paul smiled at her when she didn't look away.

Normally, at that point, they panic and snap their heads away to face another direction.

 _This_  girl, however, grinned wider and stood up, marching confidently towards him, her royal blue knee-length dress bouncing slightly as she strode over to Paul’s seat. Paul swallowed thickly, knowing he wouldn't have the heart to send her away.

 _Why would I want to anyway?_ He thought, frowning to himself, because she  _was_  beautiful. She wasn’t the skinniest of girls, her curves evident where the waistline of her frilly dress dipped steeply inwards from her breasts to rest on her hips. Her lips were red, like she had been licking and biting them for a long while beforehand; her cheeks were slightly pink, most likely from the heat of the crowds in the little hall. Her hair, unlike that of most girls, was long and thick – oddly enough, Paul welcomed that as a bit of a treat. It had never been bleached or dyed, he could tell. Most girls he came across (and admittedly took more of a liking to) were blondes –  _the more like Brigitte Bardot, the better,_  was the usual motto. But this girl’s hair was big and dark, scruffy and wild, and Paul liked it quite a bit. It was different.

He was shocked when, rather than stopping in front of him, she calmly pulled up a seat beside him and turned the white chair to face him, smiling softly.

“Hullo,” she said.

“Hiya,” Paul replied.

“What’s  _your_  name?”

“I’m Paul.”

“Hiya,  _Paul,”_ she repeated back to him, tasting the name on her tongue, smirking cheekily. “I’m Layla.”

Paul smiled politely. “Nice name,” he offered out of friendliness.  _Weird name,_ he thought to himself, trying not to frown too obviously with the thought.

Layla snorted out a brief laugh. “ _Well._  Better than  _Paul_ , anyway.”

Paul, though taken aback by the bluntness of her comment, grinned. “A lot of names are better than ‘Paul’, to be honest,” he agreed, sitting up straighter now, almost challenging the girl. “What do you think of ‘ _James_ ’, then?”

Layla frowned, her nose crinkling up in a confusingly cute way and her lip lifting up judgmentally. “What does it matter what I think of ‘ _James_ ’?”

“Because that’s my real name.”

Paul was hesitant about saying it aloud for a moment, because it never really mattered, and he often wondered if it was even worth mentioning – his ‘ _real name’_. It was something he liked to forget, really; he didn’t want to have to share a name with his father, wanting a bit of individuality for himself in some relatively normal area. His mother had been stubborn with it, though. ‘James’ had once been his mother’s name for him, and it felt odd to be sharing it at  _all_ , let alone with a girl he had never met before.

Layla frowned further. “What you playin’ at, givin’ me fake names, eh? ‘The fuck do you think I am, the scuffers?” She giggled rather suddenly and leaned closer to him, lowering her voice to a whisper. “What did ya’ do then, Mr Nobody?” She breathed, quirking a cheeky eyebrow as if she wanted to get in on a secret. “Did ya’ kill a fella’?”

Paul laughed boldly. “Yeah, sure I did,” he announced jokingly, shrugging casually. “I’m a pretty bad guy, as it goes.”

“Oh, aye?” Layla inquired, smirking and folding her pale arms over her chest, covering the ends of her scruffy brown hair. “That why your mate was glaring at me then? Warning me against ya’?”

Paul frowned and laughed uncertainly. “You’ve lost me, love,” he admitted. “Who was doing what at you?”

“Yer’ mate,” she repeated, frowning with him. “The one sat behind you before. He was lookin’ at me funny when I was lookin’ over at you. Freaked me out a little bit.”

Paul jumped slightly in his seat and spun to look across the table.

As expected, John was no longer sat there. It made Paul feel funny, that he hadn't even noticed John leaving; almost like it didn't  _matter_  that he was no longer there with him. Like Paul had never cared in the first place, so he never even noticed when John finally did slip away.

Layla was looking at him oddly, so he shrugged again.

“Sorry,” he managed. “Just… didn't notice he’d left, is all.”

“Alright then,” she accepted, shifting slightly in her seat.

“Uh… do you want me to get you a drink?” Paul offered, though he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were scanning around the room.  _Not for John,_ he told himself.  _I don’t need to know where he is right now._

Layla’s teasing tones perked up considerably at the offer. “Yeah, tah!” She exclaimed, smiling widely. “Just a coke will do for me. Drinkin’ proper like at a family-do doesn't seem too pleasant, does it?”

“Nah,” Paul mindlessly agreed, nodding his head, although he didn't necessarily see the problem with it. “Uh, I’ll be back in a minute,” he assured, before strolling off through the crowds to get to the bar, keeping his eyes open and making sure he craned his head around to get a better look at the faces surrounding him.

The bar was pretty packed. A lot of George’s family were from all over Liverpool; they breed like rabbits, the Harrison's. Most of them, like George, lived around Speke, and so were accustomed to drinking and plainly knowing how to throw a  _party._ Paul had to squeeze through a small gap between two of George’s bulkier uncles in order to be able to get the barman’s attention. He was served without question, gladly enough. He got himself another beer, got Layla that coke she wanted.

He smiled gratefully at the barman, nodding his head before taking the two drinks and shuffling out of the crowd formed around the bar.

Before he could get too far, he noticed the whole room seemed to be staring in one direction; when he squinted his eyes a bit, he spotted a middle-aged woman slumped over a piano, playing a pleasant, jolly ditty that Paul had heard his dad playing on a few odd occasions – he never knew it was well known. He always just believed it was just his dad that could do it.

The woman had a small circle of bouncy, tipsy dancers surrounding her, laughing and jiving as though the tune she played on the piano was the latest Rock n’ Roll craze.

Paul allowed himself a moment to laugh at the scene – weddings were a good lot of fun, when you’re with the right people. Jolly drunk northerners hold the stereotype of being able to make a good time out of anything that was pelted their way.

However, similarly, they hold the stereotype of being able to make the biggest catastrophe out of anything, too.

Paul stayed there for a few moments before Layla joined him. Guiltily, Paul had sort of forgotten about her. When she just got up to find him herself, he was rather grateful. He handed her the bottle of coke he had bought for her and she smiled and took a swig while he sipped on his beer. They were both happily tapping their feet to the seemingly never-ending music, until Paul felt Layla’s hand touching his arm softly.

He turned to look at her, quirking a questioning eyebrow at her.

“Do you… fancy going outside?” She asked, her voice smaller than he had heard it before. “I've got a packet of fags on me; you can have one if you like.”

Paul smiled at her. “Okay,” he accepted, hardly considering what she may have actually been offering him.

They were about to turn away from the crowd together, head out through the doors to the crispy cool winter air, but a chorus of appalled gasps followed by a nerve-wrecking silence forced Paul into jolting back to return his gaze to the scene in front of them all.

There was John, staring down at the once happy woman at the piano. He wore a foul, bitter, twisted look on his face, like he was disgusted about something – to the naked eye, it appeared that he was disgusted by the woman.

Paul searched deeper.

The woman was still sat at the piano. Only now, she was dripping wet with something that clung to her thickly and stickily, evidently not water. Beer, probably. Maybe something stronger.

It hardly took a genius to deduce how she had gotten into that state judging by the empty pint glass in the teenage boy’s hand.

John.

A stab of anger surged through Paul’s body and he clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes at John in disappointment, although it looked like utter hatred. When the woman stood up slowly and walked calmly away from the scene, John bit down on his lip, and turned.

Turned to look straight at Paul.

Or so Paul thought. They locked eyes for only a few seconds before John’s glare shifted from Paul, down to Layla, who was staring with wide blue eyes at the chaos ahead.

Paul sighed inwardly.

He’d seen John do stupid things like this out of spite because of Thelma, and even with his new ‘catch’, Cynthia.

But Paul could see it so clearly –  _that_ was for  _him._

He couldn't act surprised that John still had feelings for him. Obviously, he still had feelings for John. He hadn't even  _tried_ to deny himself of that fact – he’d had a year and a half to come to terms with the feelings he’d felt in the first place. There was no use lying about it  _now._

But he just didn't know what he could have  _done_ about it. If John was going to be difficult, then there wasn't much Paul  _could_ do but wait for it to blow over, wait for John to move on.

Wait for himself to move on.

Instead of letting the riveting anger get the better of him, he sighed and touched Layla’s shoulder softly, not wanting to leave her alone when John was in such a frenzy and was out to lose his mind, like everything was Paul’s fault.

Layla looked confused. “That’s the friend that was starin’ at me before,” she whispered to Paul as he tried to pull her out of the door – he’d only known her for a few minutes, but it didn't take long for John to dislike someone. “And he’s your band-mate – shouldn't we see if he’s alright?”

Paul shook his head and tugged on her wrist stubbornly. “Nah,” he said, his voice coming out low and gravelly. “He’s nobody.”

***

After that, everything just stopped.

Once Colin Hanton had enough of them, as seemed inevitable by that point anyway, The Quarrymen simply allowed themselves to drift off in different directions – similar to how John and Paul had silently emancipated themselves from one another.

Thing is, Paul didn't even give himself time to care.

He just  _let it happen_ ; he busied himself with other things – with time taken up by school, with his guitar, with his old group of mates from school (including Ivan Vaughan), with Layla, who he’d actually made an impressive effort to see every now and again. And things were…  _easy_.

When he was with John, life was exciting and thrilling and addictively adventurous, in far more ways than just one.

But when Paul forgot about what it had been like with John, everything went smoothly and steadily; he even started to embrace the simplicity of life all of a sudden, like a weight had been lifted, revealing the true meaning of tranquillity to him.

But he hated thinking like that.

He hated teaching himself to hate what he had once shared with John and he  _despised_  being without that daft, completely  _mental,_ lad – they seldom spoke anymore (and never by themselves if at all), and it was a frighteningly lonely feeling. Paul no longer had anybody he knew he cared about just as much as John had once cared about him. He didn’t have a secret relationship, where the norms and formalities of day-to-day life scarcely even mattered.

He just didn't have  _John_ anymore.

But that’s how it had to be. How it was supposed to be.

It was too late for changes now – Paul supposed that if he was meant to be with John, then something would happen to draw the two of them together again, like the Woolton Fête had achieved in the July of 1957.

Naturally, Paul strongly doubted that anything would happen.

And,  _naturally_ , Paul was wrong.

***

All of a sudden, it was the August of 1959, and Paul was in the midst of celebrating what was to be his last summer that would end with going back to school at the Liverpool Institute, his educational home from being eleven-years-old, to  _now_  – he was seventeen; the baby-fat he had once been so conscious of had almost completely disappeared from his now tall, strong, sturdy body, most traces of any hormonal spots had finally faded, he had mastered the ability to style his shiny, dark hair into any Ted style he fancied, and he felt the best he had done in  _months_.

It wasn't the best summer Paul had lived to see, though. The rain had decided to cling onto the North West of England like an evacuee not wanting to leave home. Thankfully, the temperature was obviously not as low in degrees as it usually was for the rest of the year, so Paul could deal with a bit of rain.

If you lived in England, you  _had_ to be able to deal with a bit of rain.

Of course, it was raining that night – Paul had taken Layla to a warm little pub in Speke, which was an odd decision for him to make, but he was in the mood for rowdy crowds and cheering drunks that evening. Something to laugh about. Something to remind him of a boy he once loved who played guitar and dressed like a Teddy boy.

Despite Layla’s determination to avoid getting drunk at family weddings,  Paul was quick to discover that this rule did not count on any other occasion. This was a girl who liked a good drink, and Paul saw nothing wrong with that at all.

He liked Layla – he didn't see her as often as he’d maybe like to. She had a job as a baby-sitter when she wasn't at her part-time job at her local newsagents, and she often asked Paul to join her, but other than that, their time together was very limited, and so he quite liked to keep their rendezvous’ between just the two of them.

So he was shocked when he spun around from the bar of the smoky pub lounge to bump into none other than George Harrison.

Paul stumbled slightly and spilled a few drops of his lager on his old leather shoes, then frowned at the younger lad, who had indeed grown over the months, but still looked no older than fourteen.

“The hell are you doin’ here, George?” He inquired, slightly irritated that he had to bump into somebody. He hadn't spoken to George that much over the prior eight months, really, and it was odd just bumping into him (despite seeing him every now and again at school) – undoubtedly, George would want to spend the evening with him and Layla, now that he had seen Paul.

George, however, looked just as surprised as Paul was. “Uh, this is me’ local, Paul,” he reminded the elder, frowning at Paul with an authority that Paul had never seen on his face before. “What are  _you_ doin’ here?”

“I’m here with Layla,” he answered, moving away from the bar as a large man who looked particularly weary tried to shove his way past the younger boys. George followed suit.

“Well… mind if I sit with you’s for a bit? Have a catch up?”

Paul sighed. He wanted so much to say no, but George was still George, and they had been close once. They still were, in a way. They’d never fallen out. Just drifted apart – and the hopeful look in George’s eyes was almost as persuasive as John’s had once been to him.

“Alright then,” Paul agreed before he could stop himself, but when he noticed George beam brightly with satisfaction, he remembered his little friend better than ever, and he realised that a catch up may not be a bad idea after all.

 

Four pints of beer later, and Paul couldn't even remember why he was where he was or who he was supposed to be with in the first place.

He had his arm dangled over George’s shoulder and the two of them were laughing hysterically over something George’s excited, intoxicated imagination had come up with, although truthfully, Paul couldn't remember exactly what it had been.

George sighed long and loud, trying to subside his laughter as he leaned his head on Paul’s shoulder, the still intact quiff hair-do of his tickling the side of Paul’s neck.

“I do miss you, y’know,” George suddenly confessed, taking a noisy slurp from his fifth or sixth pint that night.

Paul, though befuddled by the outburst, was touched nonetheless. “Aw,” he chimed, letting his head lull heavily atop of George’s. “I miss you too, Georgie.”

“I was wonderin’,” George slurred, slowly lifting his swaying head off the support of Paul’s now broadened shoulders. “If you’d do me a bit of a favour…”

Paul frowned. “What ' _favour'_ , you cheeky git?”

“Just… I've been in another band for a bit, ant’ I? And we got asked to do a show at this new club, the Casbah or summat’; s’just that… the other lads can’t do it with us, and just me and Ken alone can’t do it, can we?” George paused and looked to Paul desperately. “And I was thinkin; would ya’ give it a go? Performin’ again, like?”

Paul didn't reply straight away.

He just frowned and considered everything George said, if only mostly because he had to put the words into order for his muddled, drunk mind to understand.

When it sunk in though, his frown eased. That sounded welcoming, he thought. A little gig – little bit of fun; George by his side, guitar wrapped around his neck.  _Yeah!_  That seemed pretty great, as far as Paul was concerned.

He grinned widely and drunkenly, sitting up slightly in his seat. “Yeah!” He yelled enthusiastically, voicing his thoughts, not even thinking to ask George essentials like what the pay would be for them. “Yeah, Georgie, that’d be mint!”

“Gear!” George called back; Paul watched as relief washed over the younger boy’s face in a similar way to how one’s face turns green when feeling sick.

Paul felt like he’d done something good in agreeing to help George out. Not a big thing, but it was a nice thing anyway.

“…I’ll ask John tomorrah’ too; d’you reckon he’ll fancy it?”

Paul stopped smiling to himself immediately.

“…Paul?”

The mention of John seemed to sober up Paul’s thoughts a lot more. What was he thinking? Sodding Layla off just for a stupid, sentimental  _‘catch-up’_  with George fucking Harrison? Of course something would come up regarding John. Of  _course_ he’d act like the coward he truthfully was about it.

Of course he’d get too drunk.

Of course he’d… he…

With a sudden cramp of nausea erupting from his stomach, Paul coiled over and spat out a stream of thick, gassy liquid from his guts, right on the floor beside him.

Everything went blurry.

“Paul?” He heard George’s voice call, concern ridden all over it. “Paul, mate?”

Even George’s familiar strong Speke accent started to muffle with the sudden weight of Paul’s head. He rested his forehead on the cold wooden table, closed his eyes, and shut himself off from the churning in his stomach and the deafening ringing in his ears.

He didn't know if he just fell asleep, or if he truly passed out.

But with the worry going through his head in that moment, he was grateful for the knock out, whichever way it had happened.

***

When Paul woke up the following morning, he was surprised to find himself in his bed.

For some reason, a small part of his mind was still confused about where he was, although it  _was_ his room.

A few months prior, he had swapped bedrooms with Mike, meaning that he now had the room with the window at the front of the house. He’d never tell Michael that it was because his old room was where he had snogged John Lennon for the first time, or because of all the countless memories he had shared with him in there. He was just grateful when Mike shrugged his shoulders and mumbled a half-hearted, ‘ _Kay then.’_

As soon as he sat up, though, his head was spinning. He hadn't meant to get that drunk last night – he was  _supposed_ to be flattering Layla, but he seemed to remember her getting angry, offended about something or other, and leaving him to giggle manically with George.

He remembered George asking him to make music with him again, and he remembered…

Oh,  _Christ._

He ran his palm over his rather greasy face and fell back into the pillow. He hadn't even had the chance to stop George from bothering to ask John to join them, meaning it wouldn't be all too shocking if George had already asked John, and John had said yes.

Paul assumed that John would probably say no once he heard that Paul would be there.

But when his dad shouted him from downstairs a few hours afterwards, he would be evermore surprised.

“Hello?” He greeted when he took hold of the phone, instinctively fiddling with the wire.

“Yeah, hiya, Paul, s’me – S’George,” the voice said.

“Oh,” Paul replied. “Yeah. Hi.”

“I asked John this mornin’ and he said yeah – just wanted to know when you fancied practicing, ‘cause we only have a few days before–”

“I can’t do it.” Paul had blurted out before he could consider it.

There was a scary silence on the line.

“…Oh… Uh, why not?” George squeaked.

“I…” Paul faltered then.  _John had said yes. John didn’t care that he’d be there. He’d see John again._

_**I’m**  a coward._

“I…  _actually_ ,” Paul fixed himself, not wanting to be the weaker one anymore, if he ever had been before. “I can. Doesn't matter. Just thought I had something on.”

Paul heard George sigh loudly in relief. “Thank fuck for that,” he said. “Right, well, anyway; when do you fancy it?”

“Uh… this weekend?” He suggested. It was Monday. That gave him at least four days to prepare.

“Okay,” George agreed. “I’ll check with John then. See you; bye.”

“Yeah, bye,” Paul said, and put the phone back in its holder.

He sighed and stomped his way up the stairs and back to bed. When he found the sanctuary of the white sheets, he curled up his long legs and shut his eyes tight, until he was seeing patterns behind the shelter of his eyelids.

He was stressed, he was scared, and he had no idea where any of this would lead him, but beneath it all, he was almost unbelievably giddy.

He was going to see John again.

He just prayed that John would be feeling the same.

***

The weekend came faster than Paul had truthfully been ready for and when it was inevitably right at his doorstep, he didn't really know what to do with it.

He spent all of Thursday night practicing by himself, like he was about to perform in front of John for the first time all over again.  When Layla rang him to rant at him for being a pig, he hung up on her before she could finish, because as far as he was concerned, he had far more pressing matters to come to terms with.

He stayed awake until his body could no longer cope; knowing that the following day would be nerve-wrecking and that something  _could_ go dreadfully wrong, although he wasn't quite sure what it would be.

The following afternoon, he made his way to George’s house on his bike at a languid pace, taking all the time he thought necessary, which turned out still was not enough. He hopped off his bike and left it in the tiny back yard of the minuscule Harrison home, and was slightly discomforted to find that the back door was already open, like whatever lay beyond the threshold was waiting impatiently for him.

He swallowed thickly and stepped into the house, the smell of cigars hitting him like a force field.

George was sat in the little kitchen at the round wooden table, twiddling his thumbs.

Paul couldn't even stop himself. “Where’s John?” He asked, like he cared about nothing else.

George looked up, alarmed. “Talking to me mam,” he answered. “Living room.”

Paul nodded his head shakily and carefully laid his guitar beside George’s, leaning it against the sink, before he sat on a chair opposite the younger boy.

“So…” Paul started, unsure of what to say but knowing that it didn't really matter what he said yet – not to  _George_ , anyway. “How much is the pay for this place?”

“Fifteen shillings each,” George announced. “Maybe a bit more if we decide to head back a few more times after.”

“Oh, right; so you reckon we’ll do this again then?”

“Why,  _Macca_ , would it even be  _worth it_  to just have  _one_  reunion?”

The third voice came from the doorway and Paul froze in his seat, only lifting his head very slowly to get a peek at the figure looming over him.

He couldn't even breathe when his eyes reached John.

He was wearing a perfectly tight, white t-shirt along with a rather skinny pair of black drainies, probably new and undoubtedly bought without Mimi’s consent. His hair was right back to being styled and greased forward with hints of curls just like Elvis, one of the many things Paul had previously idled over.

But these days, everything had to be slightly different. Elvis was in the army, Jerry Lee Lewis was married to a minor, Buddy Holly was dead, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney were…  _well._  They weren't children anymore.

Why didn't John  _look_  any different, then? Why, when Paul’s wide doe-eyes met John’s honey ones, did John not put up that barrier of ice he had once used to shut Paul out?

But this time Paul’s heart was racing out of control as he fumbled over a multitude of sentence starters that he was incapable of actually mouthing. He must have looked ridiculous, but he couldn't find it in him to care. All his mind consisted of was John.

“So,” John took up where Paul could not even start, maneuvering so that he was leaning his hands on George’s chair, leaning over the youngest of the three to look at Paul in an almost smug way. “Shall we get busy, lads?”

***

Paul couldn't really believe how simple and easy John was acting about the two of them having to be close again. So shocked he was that he didn't even think to object to it, or grow suspicious of John’s rather out-of-character maturity.

They only had time to meet up once after that, very early the following day, because the performance turned out to be that very Saturday.

Afterwards, they just went straight onto the Casbah Club, wanting to see what the acoustics were like and just get to know the surroundings better, but the basement room that was to be the actual club wasn't yet finished, so John, Paul, George and Ken Brown (a friend of George’s, the only one left from his rebound band) all offered to man a paintbrush and paint a wall each, leaving the owner (Mona Best) to rush about and make all of the last minute preparations for the premiere opening of her new home-bound club.

It wasn't until it started getting a bit later on that the band – which really did not have a name, as John believed ‘The Quarrymen’ were by then ‘dead and gone’ – were able to have one last practice before swarms of youth flowed into the club like the front door was a tap and the room was a bath; the whole room filled up impressively quickly, and it was almost like watching a tsunami wash out a whole coast-line from a clear aerial view.

The group actually got the first few goes at the bar, so they were slightly tipsy already, Ken more than any of them.  They weren't really  _gone_ yet, though; Paul knew from past experience that adrenalin would  _really_  get him going, so he needn't drink much more in order to get to his preferred level of drunkenness.

But it was like being cramped so close together on a stage again made Paul over-aware of what was happening around him. He  _knew_  John was looking at him; gazing out of the corner of his eye.

They weren't over-dressed-up, so Paul doubted he was much of a spectacular sight to look at. He stuck on an old shirt and lent his dad’s tie, and John just threw a jumper on and wore some cream coloured trousers.

Yet he could  _feel_ John’s powerful gaze on him, burning beams into the side of his neck, the profile of his face.

Paul was thankful that introductions to the young audience were unnecessary, because he knew that his voice in that moment would have made him squawk ridiculously. Long Tall Sally was up first, and he had to scream that out more than sing it, meaning it wasn't a time for being a perfectionist, thankfully. He highly doubted, after so long of lack of performance, that he could have pulled it off if that had been the case.

It wasn't until half way through John’s verse of ‘Rock and Roll Music’ that Paul was reminded of who he was singing with, who was stood beside him and who was smiling widely right in his direction – Paul had only risked a glance, just a  _glance,_ but of course it turned out to be enough to get his eyes  _locked_  onto John, locked on the droplets of sweat sliding down John’s temple, the hair stuck to his face, the way his extraordinarily long fingers glided so easily over the neck of his guitar – and  _oh,_ the way his mouth hung open and his breathing came out ragged and deep…

It was impossible for Paul to take his eyes off him for the rest of the song, and he only then realised that ‘Rock and Roll Music’ was indeed to be their last song of the evening; he panicked slightly when John was the first to dive off the stage and disappear into the audience. Paul frowned and speedily put his guitar down at the back of the stage and hurried off down the steps and into the swarm of sweaty, adolescent bodies.

He reached the bar and slumped on the counter in defeat, his rather pitiful attempt at a search unsuccessful.

Then there was a hand there, gripping his arm like a vice.

He flinched and looked around him but before he could clearly see the face of the person, he was being dragged back through the crowds and towards what seemed like the toilet (there was only one cubicle for boys). He frowned. He tugged back on the arm that had hold of him so that his hand slipped into the other boy’s, and then it all made sense.

John stopped in his stride to look down at Paul, his expression nothing but soft and almost nervous as he mindlessly held Paul’s hand in his own.

After a moment of heated staring through the darkness of the densely populated club, Paul spotted the unmistakable glow of one of John’s old wolfish smiles; one of the traits that John possessed that Paul knew would have anybody wrapped around his finger in a heartbeat.

So he didn't question it when they reached the toilet, or when John locked the door once they were both inside. He daren’t interrupt anything with words when John’s lips were mashed against his own, and when he felt his own tongue darting out to rub against the familiarity of John’s smooth lips.

In a motion so quick, the elder had spun Paul around so that John was sat on the closed toilet lid and so that Paul was stood inbetween his legs – Paul could feel John’s massive, delightfully warm hands covering and massaging his arse through his trousers, and with a ragged sigh, he looked down to find that John’s face was level with his crotch, and suddenly John’s nose was nuzzling the thin fabric separating their flesh, breathing Paul in like a drug, feeling him and touching him like he was medicine.

Paul smiled to himself, the feeling of John so preciously intimate once again so shocking but also so  _natural,_ like no time had passed at all between them since the last time they had let themselves be like that; be  _themselves._

John was breathing loudly and unevenly, so Paul let his eyes flutter shut and let his hand rest atop John’s damp head of hair. When John’s hands slid down from Paul’s arse to stroke the backs of his thighs, Paul let himself move closer to John to press John’s face into his stomach, hugging him securely against his abdomen.

Paul heard John sigh, and his heart raced, though rather inexplicably. It sounded like John wanted to say something, but was unable to string the sentence together efficiently.

So Paul spoke for him.

“I know,” he whispered, surprised to find his voice choked with emotion. “Johnny, it’s okay now. I know.”

John hugged Paul’s legs tighter, so Paul ran a comforting hand down John’s neck to rest on his upper back instead.

“We can’t do this tonight,” John whispered before he finally lifted his head to look up at Paul with wide, dark eyes. “Not here and not tonight. I’ll see you again and I’ll see you again  _soon_ , okay?”

“Well,” Paul mumbled, frowning and stroking a few stray strands of hair away from John’s forehead. “Okay, but… Johnny, what about…”

“What, Cyn?” John asked, frowning too. “Layla? Paul, c’mon. There’s enough time for serious relationships another day; another life to spend with another person is right outside that door if we want it to be,” John paused, taking a thoughtful breath. “But right now… it’s still you,” he swallowed thickly, and Paul realised he had been holding his breath. “It’s still just  _you._ ”

Paul swallowed. He was at a loss for words and found himself gnawing on his bottom lip with his teeth like he hadn't done in almost eight months. “Okay,” was all he could manage, rather pathetically.

John just smiled softly and nodded his head, loosening his grip on Paul. “Okay,” he repeated, lifting himself up from the toilet to stand up in front of Paul, staring at him, smiling almost fondly.

John unlocked the door when Paul wasn't looking, and left Paul standing in the little lavatory.

He frowned, confused as to what had just happened, wondering why they even stopped being so in love in the first place. Remembering how in love they had been, and how in love, Paul realised, he  _still_  felt.

***

The crisp October morning atmosphere filled Paul’s nostrils, his head and whole body tingling as the invisible autumn frost enveloped him, wrapping him in the cool air rising from the water beneath him, despite his jacket wrapped snug and securely around him. The wind was providing an extra layer of cover, although it shielded Paul from nothing but warmth.

However, somehow, the cold was welcoming. It cleared his head, blew away the hot air that he felt was usually nestled in the often useless space between his ears. He breathed it in, letting his body lean on the railings that separated him from the dark depths of the mouth of the Mersey.

Paul didn't bother flinching when he felt the wind shift beside him as a new body intruded the tranquillity – he knew who it was. Didn't have to open his eyes to know. Didn't require a greeting.

“I didn't know.” John’s voice spoke suddenly, and Paul frowned with his eyes closed, his eyebrows furrowing deeply. Before Paul could reply, John had continued speaking. “Your name. It’s James. I never knew that.”

Paul vaguely wondered where John had found that out in the first place, but it didn't take too long for him to connect the dots. His mind filtered back to the wedding he had attended all the way back in January, and how he had told Layla about his true Catholic name, just to make conversation. His eyes opened in shock.

“Of all the things,” he said, turning to look at John, who he discovered looked very pale and windswept. “Of  _all the things_ I could have done to piss you off, you remembered  _that?”_

John shrugged. “You expected me to be mad about that bird you were about to have it off with,” he said calmly, turning to look across the river. “Nah. That’s predictable, don’t you think? No, it just… was a shock. I didn't even know your fucking  _name.”_

Paul shook his head. “My  _name_ ’s Paul,” he said, turning a little to lean smoothly against the black railings to look directly at John. “Everybody  _knows_  me as Paul, I  _respond_  to Paul, and I chose Paul  _over_  James. What does it matter what my Catholic name is?”

John looked taken aback. “Calm your tits, Sister James,” he said, his voice small in surrender. “I’m just sayin’. Made me feel like I didn't know you at all, like… uh…”

“Like there’s a new mystery around every corner?” Paul offered, smiling softly, empathetically. John looked ecstatic that somebody had come up with the sentence for him.

“Yeah!” He exclaimed excitedly, gesturing his arms out towards Paul as if to emphasise the point. “Yes, exactly!”

Paul shook his head and sighed, turning to look back across the docks. “It’s always been how I've felt about you,” he admitted quietly. “You’re going to be the death of me one day, I–” Paul stopped when he heard John laughing from beside him, snorting uncontainably. “Oi!” He yelled, nudging John harshly in the ribs. Now Paul couldn’t stop himself from smiling, though slightly bewildered. He proceeded to push against John’s side, play-fighting violently, pushing him away. “No, I’m serious! You will! You’ll kill me off!”

John just laughed louder, pushing back against Paul, holding onto the railings tightly so that the pushing and shoving was truly to no use – neither of them moved an inch.

“You’re far too cute to kill off, Macca,” John said softly, easing his body into comfort so that although he and Paul were still pressed together side by side, it was far more comfortable. Paul looked to John’s face, now stilling completely. “It’ll be me that goes first – bet somebody’ll just go ‘ _argh, that’s it, I've had enough of that bloody Lennon lad, let’s ‘ave him_!’”

Paul shook his head stubbornly, chuckling beneath his breath. “Nah, loads of people have  _already_  said that about you,” he pointed out nonchalantly. “You’ll get yourself out of anything. I can feel it – you’re invincible,” he chuckled.

“No one man is truly invincible, dear friend,” John said, his voice filled with the false wisdom of an old sorcerer. “All stories face an ending.”

Paul’s face fell to a blank expression as his heart turned hollow.  _The end._

He sighed and shuffled away from the warmth of John’s body, surrounding himself in the cold once again.

“That’s not what we’re here to talk about,” Paul said, looking at the ground like a child fearing a strict telling off. “The future stays in the future, whatever happens. The past needs resolving before it stays with us forever.”

There was a pause.

“You say that like  _I’m_  your whole future,” John mumbled. Paul was about to snap with a comment about how narcissistic John was being and to point out that he, himself, was being s _erious_ , but the older boy’s voice held no arrogant tone in it. It took Paul a moment to realise that John was only being brutally honest. “You say that like how I treat you or where I go will affect your whole life like I’m holding both of our fates in just  _my_ hands. Why do you talk like that? You  _always_  talk like that.”

Paul frowned, his heart racing ahead of him with nerves. He hadn't spoken to John – Hell, to  _anybody –_ like this in a good ten months. It was taking longer than necessary to put his feelings into words.

“Because…” he started, once he could finally get his bottom lip out from between his gnawing, chattering teeth. “Because where you go, I feel like I should be.”

Paul nodded his head confidently once the sentence had escaped his lips.

John sighed.

“…How’s life been, Paul?” He asked.

“What the hell does that even matter?”

“It just  _does,_ so answer me.”

Paul faltered. Why  _did_ it matter? Why did it  _have to_ matter? He didn't understand. He didn't want to remember what it was like. He was about to open his mouth to pour his heart out, to tell John everything – about Layla, about school, about Ivan Vaughan and their group of friends, about money problems at home, about  _everything_ he had felt and loved and been through.

“It was simple,” was all that left his mouth. He paused for thought. “It was…  _Life,_  it was… like reinstatement of equilibrium, y’know? Like the peace had come back. Everything was easy.”

John chuckled beside him. “I wouldn't necessarily say the two of us started out with the stereotypical equilibrium of a narrative story though, would you?”

Paul smiled wistfully and shook his head at John. “You’re the disruption,” he said calmly, factually. “Your whole life, Johnny. There was never equilibrium for you. There’s never been total peace.” Paul let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and smiled to himself. “But for me… it started with bus stops.”

“ _Bus stops_?”

Paul chuckled at John’s evident befuddlement. “Yeah,” he laughed, though the sound was strained with emotion. “Yeah. Bus stops. Getting on at one, getting off at another.” He paused. “Once you told me that art is like life. I didn't understand at first. You said, ‘ _Every tap or scrape of a paintbrush is symbolic.’_ You told me that that’s like life, because every tiny thing we do, say, breathe or think  _means_ something. It makes a story. It makes life, like paint fills a canvas…” he took another long breath. “One of Stu’s sayings, I bet at the time, so I ignored it. Now I understand. Because I thought about it, and it works with music too, because music is art aswell, right? So, every lyric I write, or every chord I play – it makes a rhythm, or a harmony, or a melody. A  _song._  It tells a story, like Stu and his paint.”

“I don’t see where this is going,” John announced, frowning against a very sudden gush of sea wind.

“Just listen.” Paul ordered firmly. “Anyway, so, I've never heard of a painting partnership before.  _You_  might have, but  _I_  haven’t – and I don’t fancy myself as much of a painter anyway, so that’s out of the way.  _However_ , music came to me through  _you_. If I was enthusiastic  _before_  I met you, I was  _dedicated_  after. You gave me the music. I gave you the comfort and reliability of a beat, and you gave me the unpredictable excitement of a solo,” Paul smiled wider now, looking straight at John – his windswept hair, his reddened, frost bitten cheeks, his warm lips and beautiful eyes. “If making music is like life, then that’s just great. Why, John? Because every good bit of music I've ever made, I made with you. Every lyric I've been proud of, I've written down with you in mind, and turned to you for help when I needed it… if that can be compared to life, then it’s simple.”

“What is?”

“It means that to make my life what it  _could_  be, I need  _you._  In the same way that my creativity needs you for the music,  _I_ need you to be around for  _me_. Because yes, it was  _so_  easy without you; all the days went so quickly – it was bliss!” Paul grinned. “But nothing made my heart race – nothing the world had to give me from where I was made me as happy, or sad, or excited like you did. And I’ll tell you what, life was  _shit_ for that reason.” One last deep breath was inhaled before Paul turned fully to look at John, his smile wild and confident and heartfelt, like a weight had been lifted from his heart and his shoulders. “And y’know what, Lennon?”

“Y-Yeah, Macca?” John croaked, evidently lost for words or direction.

“I reckon  _you_ might  _just_  need  _me_ , too.”

When John smirked, his natural, stunning glow highlighted by the dullness of the grey skies, Paul knew he had been right.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to start by saying, once again, I'm so so so sorry for the wait again, and I admire you all for your patience and faithfulness.
> 
> I hope this ties things up nicely for you all.

If Paul had thought that the year he first met John was one whirlwind, then the following few months were a fucking hurricane.

It was actually before October that John, Paul and George had decided to try to reform a band. Johnny and the Moondogs, as they became known, were older, more experienced, and just generally _better_ than the Quarrymen – they were getting gigs easier than ever (little ones, but gigs nonetheless), even without a manager – Hell, without a _drummer._ Just three boys and three guitars, and that’s all they felt as though they needed.

Their confidence had tremendously improved, Paul had noticed, and he loved that. He loved that they were willing to flaunt the fact that they believed they were worth something; he didn’t see any shame in it, and why should he? Modesty wouldn’t get them anywhere – that much he knew.

The regional final of the TV Star Search was an example of their confidence flourishing. They managed a train and then a bus into Manchester town, almost an hour’s journey including the many stop-offs, with hardly any money on them. It was a bit risky, and Paul only started getting the full hit of the problem as they reached the dimming streets of Manchester city centre, making their way down the A56.

“No, lads, I’m serious,” he panicked, his eyes wide and alarmed. “I’m not going to have enough money to get back home.”

John laughed heartily from the seat behind Paul and George, leaning over the back of the chair to peer down at his love mischievously. “Don’t worry, Mac; we’ll strap ye’ to the top a’ the bus if needs be,” he chuckled, George repeating the sound like an echo.

“ _Fuck off, John_ ,” he hissed, frowning deeply. Although the two of them were almost as close as they used to be by this point, John still got on Paul’s nerves, and Paul on his too. “This is _serious._ ”

Suddenly, the bus rattled violently and came to a stop. Paul stared out of the door and gnawed at his lip uncertainly. His mind was racing, and nobody cared that he might not even be able to get home. A scouser staying a night on the streets of Manchester? _Fucking imagine,_ he thought, _I’d be dead in a minute._

Then he felt something cold and metal being pressed into his palm.

He snapped his neck upwards and rested his eyes on an ageing man with a fancy looking black felt hat on. He was pressing little over five shillings into Paul’s open palm.

Before Paul could say anything, the man walked away off the bus and stood on the pavement outside.

Paul glanced to George, then to John, to find the both of them staring wide eyed and seemingly awestruck. Suddenly, Paul realised that he hadn’t even said a simple _thank you_ to the stranger. He pondered, _what would a real star do?_

He stood up and bellowed loudly, _“I love you!”_ down the bus. As the door closed, he smiled to himself as the man waved him off, sitting back down in his seat as the bus started to move again.

Apparently, John had calmed down and had sat back in his own seat, behind Paul’s, so Paul turned to George beside him, nudging him softly.

“Are you nervous?” He asked his younger friend, frowning at him. “About tonight?”

George shrugged his shoulders. “A little bit,” he admitted. “But I guess that’s normal. I mean, it’s a pretty big thing, innit? Regional finals and that.”

Paul sighed and nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

George frowned and stared at him, his mouth twisted in curiosity. “Why, are _you_ nervous?”

Paul shrugged, an echo of George’s previous response. “Honestly… no, not really.”

“Why not?” George inquired, shifting in his seat, looking at Paul like he’d gone completely insane.

“I’m not sure,” Paul sighed and then let himself have a rather lengthy moment to think about it. “I think… I think it might be because I’m not too bothered about it. I’m a bit more relaxed, now, about the music. It just comes to me,” he paused and smiled slightly at his friend. “So, I think I have a bit more faith in us. I _don’t_ think this is our only chance.”

Paul was pleased to find George nodding his head slowly, like he was still travelling through the process of comprehension, but getting there nonetheless. “Right… but this is still a _good_ chance for us, y’know.”

“Yeah, yeah, o’course I know that,” Paul reassured, rolling his eyes. “I just meant, if we don’t succeed, then we’re still gonna’ be okay…” he paused when he realised how emotive he was coming across, then changed his general posture to look as nonchalant as he could manage. “D’ya get me?”

George chuckled. “Yeah, Paul. I get you.”

Paul felt as though he hadn’t said enough to reassure his friend, but they were silent for the rest of the journey, and he let the rattles of the bus relax him further.

 

Needless to say, Johnny and the Moondogs did not win the competition that day.

John wasn’t too happy. He went ranting and raging out of the changing rooms, started parading off down the street swearing all sorts, before Paul and George ran after him to stop him. Paul told George to head off back to the changing rooms as he held John against a wall, restraining him and keeping him still, physically preventing him from escaping.

Once George was out of sight, Paul loosened his grip on John, shoved his back against the wall harshly and then took a step away from him, leaving the older boy to slide down the wall onto the pavement.

“What the fuck are you playing at, Johnny?” Paul growled, his arms folded over his chest. “What, you wanna’ shout at the judges till they give us our trophy, eh? Wanna’ get Aunt Mimi to ring ‘em up, have a shout at them? Well that wouldn’t be _fair,_ John. Learn some fuckin’ respect.”

 _“Respect?”_ John spat at him, frowning angrily. “What the fuck do _you_ know about ‘respect’, Paul? You’ve never respected anybody but yourself!”

Paul was slightly taken aback by the comment. His eyes widened and he faltered for words, opening and closing his mouth in a fast sequence.

When John stood up, something clicked in Paul’s head.

He lowered his voice to barely even a whisper. “ _Is this because you haven’t fucking topped yet?”_ Paul hissed harshly, cornering up to John.

When John tried to force his way away from him, Paul knew he had been right yet again.

“You fuckin’ _prick,_ John! Jesus Christ, where’s the fucking ‘respect’ in that, you utter cunt?!”

“Will you shut the fuck up, Paul?” John growled quietly.

Paul shook his head in disbelief. He had to momentarily subside the aching in his chest that must have been his heart breaking at the knowledge he now harnessed from John. Lennon was in a shit mood because he’d still never fucked Paul up the arse.

Paul didn’t know if he should have been flattered or frightened.

“Paul,” John whispered, suddenly conscious that they were still in public. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant we’ve barely spent any time together – y’know, _together_ together. I miss you. I miss the way you feel. I’m… excited, Macca. Over you. I wanna’… pick up where we left off sort a’ thing.”

Paul swallowed and he felt his cheeks shallow. He was still scared – scared of what it would make him, even though what they did that Christmas that felt so long ago by then did not change John at all. Paul’s ego would be damaged, and he wasn’t ready yet.

Or was he?

Paul couldn’t deny that he had thought about it – John taking him, John inside him, John finding that _spot_ that Paul had managed to find inside of him. And since Paul’s admittance at the docks, he had known that all the possibilities he would bear in mind were all back to being possible again. It was just like John said; he was _excited._

Paul rolled his eyes. He was getting too far ahead of himself. “It’s beside the point,” he said, starting to step away from his lover. “Sort your fucking temper out and pour yer’ deprived heart out to me another time, yeah?”

He walked away, but his heart was fluttering like a caged dove in his chest.

Possibilities were still in reach.

***

Paul’s confidence started turning to carelessness.

He kept on putting off gigs or competitions after Manchester; he didn’t feel like it mattered yet. Not all that long ago he had been showing off how old he was now that he was seventeen; but all of a sudden, he felt _young_ again, like a past version of himself had travelled forward and taken his place. There was so much _time_ again. They had so little to lose.

He and John went back to truanting off school, hiding away at Paul’s house. Paul had exams over the next few months, but he just couldn’t find it in him to care. He was with John and as he had explained at the docks, John was his life, or all that he could see his life consisting of foreseeably. What did it matter what he got in an exam about how to find the areas of a few circles, honestly?

Thing is, he knew it wasn’t all-around positive. He knew George was getting bored. He knew his dad was getting sick to death of him going nowhere, being a nobody-in-particular sort of guy. And John, well…

“Are you, like, not into music anymore or somethin’?”

John and Paul were curled up together beneath the bed sheets of John’s bed. They’d been out the night before, had a bit much to drink. It was slightly reckless of them because, yet again, Paul’s father had decided to lock him out. Of course, John’s bed was his favourite sanctuary next to his own. They’d just lie there together in perfect, tranquil silence until the birds started chirping outside and the blackness morphed into a dark blue.

Paul frowned at John’s question, lifting his heavy head to gaze at him questioningly. “Don’t be stupid, John.”

John sighed and moved his eyes off Paul, looking at the shadowy ceiling above them both. “I’m not bein’ stupid. It’s just, you’re different all of a sudden. It’s March and we’ve not done anything since November; I’ve known you for three years and never once have you been this…unproductive. What’s the matter with ye’, Macca?”

Paul licked his lips in thought. “I reckon we can do better than our older stuff, that’s all,” he reassured, not taking his eyes off John even though John was no longer looking at him. “We’ve been doin’ the same venues for the last three years, and we’ve gotten better, so why are we makin’ no effort to change anythin’?”

There was a pause as John exhaled loudly.

“Well, yeah, that makes sense. But… I don’t exactly see you makin’ any ‘efforts’, Paul. You just put everythin’ off… is it… is it ‘cause of that bird you’re seein’ now; Dot? Is she makin’ you… different?”

Paul laughed and lifted his hand to comb through a few strands of John’s scruffy, slightly curly hair. He smiled when he saw the corner of John’s lips twitch into a soft grin. “No, Johnny,” he chuckled, shaking his head against John’s chest. “No, she isn’t.”

“Hmm,” John hummed. “Good. Nothin’s gonna’ change my world.”

Paul frowned suddenly. He didn’t know if John meant literally the whole world, or if he meant Paul. “Nobody but you.”

John chuckled huskily, rubbing his hand over Paul’s arm. “Exactly.”

“Then let’s do something,” the younger boy sighed into the darkness.

“What, right now?”

“No, shut up. I meant soon. Let’s sort something proper; how about that Allan Williams bloke? Owns the Jacaranda, where you and Stu go? Yeah. Ask him about something for us, and we’ll see if it’s worth it.”

“Alright, Princess Paulie,” John droned. “But what do you mean by ‘ _something’_?”

Paul grinned. “Something that sets the future.”

***

It didn’t take much for Paul’s plan to be taken into full action.

They didn’t start off with asking Allan Williams to give them something to work with, though. The next thing closest to a gig was John and Paul playing as the ‘Nerk Twins’ at Paul’s cousin’s pub that April of what Paul truly felt was the start of the rest of forever - 1960.

The small show they did at the Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham wasn’t insignificant because it wasn’t as big as the two of them may have preferred, though. Paul’s cousin-in-law had been an Entertainment Manager, so as the two younger lads tried to sort out their line-up, he helped a lot with tips and suggestions. Paul never forgot them.

“No good starting with Be-Bop-A-Lula,” he ordered, shaking his head and stamping his foot as Betty giggled from behind the bar she was scrubbing at with a wet cloth. John and Paul were sat on stools with their guitars, ready to be told what to do, waiting eagerly. “You need to open with something fast and… instrumental. Show off what you can do without straining your voices straight away. This is a pub – a Saturday night. What else have you got?”

Paul’s mouth dropped open slightly as he turned to look at John, struggling to think of what they could put forward without sounding like an ignorant fool.

“Uh, well…” He faltered when John didn’t say anything before he could. “We do ‘The World is Waiting for the Sunrise’…?”

When Mike (the name of Betty’s husband – Paul always had to distinguish between the name of Betty’s Mike and ‘our Mike’ in conversations with family members to avoid confusion) waved his hand towards John and Paul’s instruments, they played the song for him, Paul on melody and John on rhythm.

When they finished, they looked up at Mike expectantly.

“ _Perfect,”_ Mike said, and Paul couldn’t seem to hide the beam in his grin. “Start with that, _then_ do Be-Bop-A-Lula.”

Mike was good like that. He actually made an effort to _help;_ he _advised,_ not instructed – he only ordered for certain approaches to certain scenarios, like a pub on a Saturday night. He taught a lot; Paul would remember his words plenty of times in the future, he knew. But the rest was up to them.

So they did two shows at the pub – only got paid in minimal spends by Betty, but Paul didn’t mind. He was overjoyed when John seemed content with everything that went on, too.

They lay in bed on the last night staying with Betty in Caversham – they were sharing a bed anyway, because Betty didn’t have many rooms in the upstairs living area of the pub. The door was locked, so they were both being themselves. The best way to be.

John shifted to look at Paul beside him, rubbing his rough thumb over Paul’s smooth cheek. “So,” he started tiredly as he closed his eyelids. “How do we make history now, Macca?”

Paul grinned and found John’s hand, twiddling John’s fingers almost mindlessly. “We work more. We work harder. We work together.”

“That’s a lot of working,” John chuckled silently. His voice was close to a whisper, and every word he spoke was soothing to Paul’s ears. “Will we ever have any time for just us?”

Paul smiled. “It’s always been just us, ya’ numpty.”

“It hasn’t – we have George, too. But that isn’t what I meant; you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” Paul chuckled, kissing the back of John’s hand softly. “We’ll always have time for that, Johnny – in the grand scale of things, I don’t think it’s that important… but we’ll find ways. We’ll always find ways for us.”

The only reply Paul received was a rustling of pillows and a muffled ‘Mmmm’ of agreement.

Paul fell asleep with a smile on his face.

***

Arms around his waist; lips pressing firmly, wetly yet warmly, against his neck; the darkness engulfing him, pulling him into unfamiliar, cold bed sheets.

Never has such an assumedly insignificant place felt so much like a home on that evening; the last evening of their first journey, one of their major premier milestones within what could be their true careers.

Paul opened his eyes and peered through the blackness of the room to see a shadow where he knew John’s head was, buried in the crook of his neck, kissing him and nipping playfully at the skin.

Paul just smiled, and daydreamed.

 

It was barely two weeks ago that they had turned up for the Larry Parnes’ audition. Paul, John and George with Stuart Sutcliffe on bass and Tommy Moore on drums – frankly, it felt like a big deal. It was the big deal that Paul felt they needed. They’d tour more of Northern England and some parts of Scotland backing some singer called Johnny Gentle.

 _After_ the audition at the Blue Angel, one of Allan Williams’ places.

It all went a bit raucously. They weren’t the best, by any means. But after the audition, they all – slightly drunkenly – stumbled up towards where Allan leaned against the bar, watching Cass and the Casanovas with a fond, smug half-grin on his face for setting the whole dig up.

Paul almost laughed aloud at the memory of John spilling his drink on Allan’s shoes, shimmying up to Larry Parnes, who watched from a distance. Paul spotted Parnes’ smirk at some point, like he was choking back a laugh.

Thing is, it was another matter of Paul not wholeheartedly minding that their performance could have been a lot better. He saw the laughter, he felt the music – he was confident without any back-up, and it felt wonderful.

So although he yelped and jumped and laughed and hugged everybody he could reach when the news came around from Allan that they were going on tour, he wasn’t all too surprised. It just felt right.

John had kissed his hand after he walked Paul home – he pecked his lips up Paul’s arm and everywhere he could touch, and Paul felt like the most important human being in the world.

 

He felt that way now.

He couldn’t seem to force his lips down into a neutral expression. He was stuck smiling; stuck feeling like a bird permanently caught in flight, atop the world.

It had been their final tour date and after a week of sleeping in the back of a van, all six of them decided to treat themselves to a nights’ sleep in a proper bed.

When John insisted he didn’t have enough money for his own room, nobody questioned the idea of him sharing a room with Paul.

And for the first time, Paul didn’t even question it when John implied what he wanted to do. Paul knew he wanted it too, if only a bit. Fear does not cloud out what a person wants.

“Hang on,” Paul whispered eventually and gently shoved John back off him. He had to bite down to extinguish the slightly nervous smirk that was creeping its way onto his features. He leaned over the side of the bed to John’s still packed bag and returned to sitting up straight, handing John his tub of Vaseline like it was nothing.

John’s eyes widened until they almost looked like they could escape from their sockets.

“Is it… which one of us is...?”

“Me,” Paul interrupted, twiddling his thumbs. “As in, _y’know_ \- you can… you can do me, if… if you’d like…”

No verbal answer came for Paul, though. Just a rough movement so that he was lay on his back again, with John kissing him with more force and passion in a kiss than they had done since their first.

He felt John’s hands on his hips, tugging and pushing him from side to side, and it dawned upon him that John was trying to flip him over.

“No,” Paul whispered. John did not respond. “ _No,_ Johnny,” he tried again, this time grabbing John’s arm hard until the older boy stilled completely.

“I want to face you,” Paul whispered. “I don’t wanna’ hide.”

John stared at Paul like he was waiting for the punch-line to a bad joke; when Paul stared up at him with widened, expectant hazel eyes, John accepted Paul’s request, and all too soon, it was over.

Paul didn’t come. After a while, John only hit that mystery spot about three times, and it wasn’t enough for Paul to reach the release he would normally be yearning for, but he wasn’t bothered when John came inside him and was too tired to finish Paul separately.

It didn’t matter. And it wasn’t surprising.

It hurt, as Paul knew it would. But a lot of things hurt – loss hurts, hatred hurts – love hurts, he knew.

But he felt whole with John inside him, somehow. Like a puzzle piece had quite literally slotted into place.

It was beautiful.

 _They_ were beautiful.

***

It’s only two in the afternoon, but the Jacaranda coffee bar is buzzing with youths back in the heart of Liverpool.

Most of them should be at school, or college, or work, or _something._ A few were mindless wanderers – no place to go, no place to be.

Others had more plans.

John was wriggling his way over towards the bar, leaning over the counter on his stomach, lifting his feet off the ground so that he was rocking himself over the counter. Paul sat on a leather sofa, wedged between Stu and somebody called Wanda from the Art College. On the stool opposite the sofa sat Cynthia Powell, John’s (almost long-term) girlfriend.

Paul chuckled and sipped his coke. John wasn’t drunk or anything, but he was giddy – was being his natural, slightly extrovert, self. He was whining like a child at Allan Williams, who sat behind the bar, appearing to be focusing very intently on a cross-word in a newspaper.

Paul smirked as he eavesdropped on John’s wailing tones.

“Oh, come _on_ , Al! You can get us somethin’ else, I fuckin’ _know_ you can! You’re just bein’ a whiny little prat about it! Personally, _I_ think it’s something to do with your lack of business recently… I think you’re slackin’, our kid – I think you’re loosin’ out big time.”

Allan looked up at John through his readers and folded the newspaper in half over his hand to peer up at him. “You shouldn’t be worrying about that stuff,” he said, sounding completely unamused and slightly patronising with his high-pitched Welsh accent. “You should still be in school, son. Get yourself a damn job, like the rest of us.”

 “Well if you want me to get a job so much, you could help us out a bit more! Aw, don’t be a dick about it, Al–”

“Oi! Language, Lennon.”

Paul chuckled over the sound of a jiving tune coming from the jukebox and strained his ears in order to continue listening in.

“-sorry, right, but, like, I mean it! Johnny Gentle said that we were gettin’ noticed more than he was up in Scotland, and that was only _seven days!_ Imagine what we could do long-term! You could… You could manage us and all sorts!”

Although Paul couldn’t see John’s face, he could picture it almost perfectly. Slightly red cheeks, slippery lips; ted hair-do bunched up in thick curls at the top of his head, auburn with a twinge of brown where the grease was more dense – John’s hair was fluffier than Paul’s, Paul knew. Better washed, thanks to Mimi. Paul’s own hair was slick with grease and forced into a position, often without being washed out for a few days because of how long it took to manufacture.

But Paul smiled at the thought of John peering down over the counter at Allan, beaming excitedly, a spark of hope urging him on, his mind starting to think, _yeah, he could help us this time – he has no reason to decline us again._

There was a lengthy pause (or so Paul assumed, judging that it was not just a fault of his own hearing abilities in that moment).

Eventually, he picked up something from Allan that sounded a lot like “…we can try, but…”

He felt Stuart nudging his ribs harshly.

Paul jerked and frowned, agitated. He didn’t like Stu any more now than what he used to; he’d just adjusted to his company. “What?”

“Did you hear that?” He whispered, leering over his black sunglasses, revealing two wide, pale eyes that looked frighteningly ghostly to Paul.

“Hear what?” Paul hissed.

Stu pushed the glasses up his nose slightly and licked his lips. “I think John’s got you something there,” he uttered, like it was top-secret government information. “Ask him when he comes back.”

Paul rolled his eyes.

But when John came back, he didn’t ask. He waited. He saw the grin on John’s face when he sat back down on the seat next to Cynthia, and Paul knew.

Something big was coming their way.

***

“Oi, dick ‘ead! Let us in!”

Paul could see the silhouette of John through the curtains in the morning room at Mendips. It was raining, it was nine in the morning, and Paul was far from in the mood for fucking about. He’d been stood in the front garden for over an hour now, watching John’s shadow shuffling about and swaying – he could feel the smirk on John’s face, like he was winning a battle that Paul was unaware he had even got himself into.

His fist hit the door with one final slam, and Paul was about to turn away.

Then John opened the door. Smiling.

Fucking. _Smiling._

Paul could have swung for his smug little face right there.

“Do come in, Macca dear,” John chimed, standing aside and waving Paul in.

“I fucking hate you,” Paul growled, storming past and shoving John in the chest as he shook his currently drenched mop-like hair, turned completely black by the density of the rain, before flinging his soaking shoes off and abandoning them in the porch.

Paul noticed that John was wearing a jumper and his Y-fronts along with a pair of thick, warm looking socks. He glanced towards John’s hand, where a steaming cup of tea was being held, practically flaunting it in front of Paul’s face.

Suddenly, Paul couldn’t wait to be a massive cunt about the mood John had put him in.

“What brings you here so early?” John inquired, his tone deliberately set high-pitched and taunting. He stepped into the hallway and shut the door with a click, watching as Paul shook his coat off and hung it in the cupboard under the staircase.

“To give you some news, actually,” Paul spat, folding his arms over his chest. His face must have been bright red, because he was freezing and felt horrible and damp – his lips were numb, and he could feel his nose start to sting a bit from how often he had rubbed at it as he waited for John to let him in, like the frost had quite literally been biting at his flesh. Fuck being apologetic. “I can’t come to the gig tonight.”

Paul watched as John’s face morphed from snarky arrogance, to dismay, to rage. It worried Paul how satisfying it was to see that affect occur right before his very eyes.

“What the fuck do you mean, you _can’t come_? What’s stoppin’ ya?” John yelled. He spilt a bit of his hot tea as he waved his hand about, and then put the cup down on the windowsill of the porch behind him.

Paul almost lost his nerve. He found it again soon enough.

“Dad’s makin’ me go job centre,” Paul announced, shrugging like it was nothing.

For a second, John looked like he couldn’t argue with it. They weren’t earning enough money and Paul had just missed most of his exams to disappear on a tour of Scotland. His father’s hopes of a future teaching career were essentially blown away the second he got himself into music, and that wasn’t due to be changing any time soon. Some sort of income was necessary, unfortunately. John couldn’t argue with Paul because he was finally earning something for himself.

But then a scowl took over John’s features like a plague spreading throughout a community.

“This isn’t the first time your da’s done this when he knew you had a show to do with me,” he muttered, frowning harshly at the floor.

“And I still don’t have a job, John,” Paul slurred, trying to sound patronising. “He won’t just give up, will he?”

“Before you came here, what did he say to you?” John snapped, glaring straight at him now. “Did he hurt you?”

“John!” Paul yelled, his eyes wide and alarmed. “I’m eighteen, for fuck’s sake; you think I still take a slap from him every now and again? Seriously?”

 “Yes, I do!” John shouted. The empty house vibrated slightly with the echoes. “Or you might aswell do, the way he controls you!”

“Look, Johnny, he isn’t _controlling_ me, really,” Paul droned, rolling his eyes. Truthfully, he had not expected such a colossal explosion from his lover. “He’s my fucking dad! He’s just… he’s…” Paul frowned for a moment. “…Guiding me!”

“We were guiding ourselves a few weeks ago, Paul. You don’t want a steady career on the fucking docks, or in a shop; you’re a musician, you dick. You’re better than that shite.”

“Even if I am, I need money to survive for the time being,” Paul sighed and lowered his voice. “You know how stuff’s goin’ at home at the minute, Johnny – money’s tight. I have ta’ do _somethin’._ ”

John’s face was truly a mask in that moment. He gazed right past Paul and seemed to have already come to his own conclusion in his head. Paul’s curiosity was momentarily piqued to its capacity, but when John spoke, his heart sunk down to his stomach.

“Choose.” John said, looking more solemn than Paul had truly ever seen him look before.

“Wha-”

“Oh, you know _what,”_ John spat, rolling his eyes haughtily with his arms folded. “You wanted this music business to be taken seriously and to get us somewhere, yet now _you’re_ the one copping out on us,” John’s voice had begun to rise in intonation again, so Paul sighed loudly. “Choose. Me or your dad.”

“Oh, _John,_ don’t be so ridiculous-”

“I’m not being!”

“I can’t abandon my dad for you!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” John complained. Paul’s chest crippled slightly in embarrassment as it dawned upon him that his plan of winding John up with the news had failed miserably and turned back on him immensely. “You can choose your future – my future for you or your dad’s future for you.”

“What happened to choosing my own future?!”

“Well,” John sighed, suddenly calm. “It will be your future. We’re just… ‘ _guiding_ ’ you.”

The way John smirked as he left Paul in the hall of Mendips made Paul want to scream, but he knew he had to handle his ultimatum with maturity.

So, in all his mature wisdom – he put his flooded shoes and jacket back on, and stormed out of the house, back into the rain.

 

After a lengthy few hours of pure pondering, Paul thought deeply about his decision.

He sat on the sofa at home, his long legs sprawled out across the floor as he slumped in the seat, arms covering his stomach like he was in agony.

Which, in a sense, he was.

Frustration was a kind of agony – anger was agonising to go through generally anyway and every time John said daring things regarding “choosing”, Paul always wonders how he can be so risky with what they have; every single time it happens, a small rebellious part of Paul wants to choose his dad, or his girlfriend at the time, or his fucking school work, over the older boy who he might aswell have devoted his damn soul to. Anything that wasn’t John, he sort of dared himself to choose it over him – choose something that would be his own entirely over the boy from the Woolton Fête who had whisked him away with the stars, with the warmth in his eyes and the desperation of his fragile soul.

Paul felt the couch bounce slightly as the weight of another person was added to the piece of furniture. He turned his head to the side slowly until it was clear that it was in fact Mike who had jumped down. He looked at his younger brother for a moment, and Mike stared back, one slightly bushy eyebrow quirked as he stared at Paul inquisitively.

Paul sighed exasperatedly. “What do you want, Mikey?”

Mike shrugged. “Dad’s going to be home soon you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Paul moaned. “So what?”

“Just… you’re in a bit of a mood today, s’all…”

 Paul rolled his eyes. “Aye, fuckin’ Einstein you are. What does that have to do with da’?”

Mike sighed and turned to face Paul completely, curling his leg and sprawling out on his side of the couch. “Look…” he sighed. “I know Dad’s pushin’ you pretty hard with all this job bullshit. I know it really isn’t what you want to do and I know you’re just takin’ it all because you think you don’t have a choice…” Paul frowned deeply and pondered over where this was going. “But you do,” Mike continued, looking at Paul with wide, sympathetic eyes. “You’ll always have a choice, and you should choose what _you_ want… You’ve always taught me that. Prove it to me.”

Paul chuckled with no real sense of humour in the sound. It was a dry sound, he noticed – barely even human. He needed a cigarette and he needed to sleep a bit, he needed music and he needed…. He needed _John_.

Suddenly, Mike’s words began to make sense to him, like the clockwork in his mind had started spinning once again.

_Clocks. Ticking away every second, every minute, every hour, every day._

_Time will always run out._

Paul smiled broadly at his little brother and in the back of his mind, he wondered what had happened to the boy who had grinned and teased him for coming back from the Woolton Fête too late – too late because of John, because John, somehow, had always been there.

“Y’know somethin’, Mike?” He quipped, grinning crookedly and childishly. “I think you’re onto somethin’ there.” Paul hopped up from his seat and stood tall, stretching himself to look into the mirror above the mantel piece. He grinned wolfishly and turned to his brother once again. “For once.” He joked as he swerved his arm inwards and playfully flicked the top of Michael’s rather neat-looking hair.

“Oi,” Mike chuckled, swatting Paul’s hand away. “Piss off and don’t forget your guitar, yeah?”

Paul grinned. “Thanks, Mikey,” he said, his voice soft.

He was out of the house before he could bother to listen to a reply.

           

The Casbah Coffee Club was empty when Paul got there, much to his relief. The house was tall, dark and it always seemed to Paul as though it was on a slight slant, like it was fragile and permanently on the verge of crumbling, but it never was. It was strong; it was, as far as he could tell, a permanent physical fixture, as faithful as the waves slamming against seashore.

It was a cloudy day. It reminded Paul of being a child; when most memories were of holidays – were of sunshine and his mother and the sweet innocence and obliviousness of childhood – every now and again he received glimpses of car journeys across long motorways, himself and Mike slumped on one another’s shoulders, dozing off as their father drove them to Auntie Jin’s house in blissful silence, their mother resting her hand on Jim’s over the gearstick; when the sky is white, the birds flying high above are clear in contrast to the blankness of the blanket of clouds. Paul used to watch them in awe. Once, Michael said, “I bet hunters love it when the weather’s like this.”

Paul shifted away from Mike and looked at him in alarm. “Why on Earth would you say that?”

“Because they’re dead noticeable against all that white,” Mike announced matter-of-factedly, clearly proud of his use of logic. “Good targets. Photographers must like it too, because it doesn’t mess about with the shot; if they want a picture of the birds, they get a picture of the birds, not blinding rays of sunlight.”

Paul frowned in thought. At this time, Michael had been about eleven, Paul thirteen. He wasn’t looking for an argument with his brother, though, not this time. “They always looked so free to me,” Paul announced, staring up at the creatures in the sky, which looked no bigger than a cluster of dots. “I always thought it would be lush to be a bird, because they’re so free.”

Then it was Mike’s turn to frown, his young face scrunching up in confusion. “Isn’t every animal free?”

Paul frowned and thought deeply about it. “Well, no,” he answered, thoughtfully. “No, because… some people don’t let animals be free, and some people don’t let other people be free for being different. But everybody’s different, so… really, nobody can be truly free.”

“Oh,” Mike mumbled, nodding his head like he understood.

Paul chuckled. “Oh,” he mimicked.

Almost a man grown now, Paul walked up the steps to the Casbah Club, the image of his father filled his head; the disappointment he would wear upon his face when Mike explained that Paul had abandoned their plan to search for a steady job for the eighteen-year-old, and had chosen John instead.

 _Freedom or John?_ Paul found himself questioning.

When he started to walk down the steps to the basement, where Mrs Best had explained the band were situated, he scoffed at himself and shook his head at the blatant answer to the question.

 _John,_ he thought. _It will always be John._

When Paul reached the bottom of the wooden steps, his eyes were immediately drawn to the centre of the room where a lamp was lit in the middle of a table and the familiar figures of George and Stuart were leaning over the table, smiling.

The third figure turned around to see who had just entered the room with them.

Paul’s heart leapt into his throat.

He made himself remember something for life, in that moment. Making somebody happy, somebody you love, somebody you know, _anybody_ who deserves it _–_ it’s a better achievement than anything; better than money, better than fame, better, even, than being in love in the first place.          

John’s smile was exuberant, taking away the light from the lamp, his eyes glimmering like the hope of a child’s heart. Paul smiled in return, shrugging so that his guitar case strap fell off his shoulder and into the crook of his arm so that he could lay it on the floor.

He walked over to the three boys; he glanced at George, who was wearing a coat far too big for his body – Paul smiled fondly at the grinning lad; the boy from the bus. Paul had never been wrong; George truly was ever faithful.

When he caught Stuart’s eye, he was shocked, because for once, Stuart was not hiding behind his sunglasses; he was smiling softly, leaning on the table smoothly. Paul frowned then. Something was up.

“We have news,” George announced first, as his grin widened to show his teeth. He seemed chuffed that he was the first one of the three to mention it, so Paul raised his eyebrows in interest at his friend and took a seat opposite John, not really wanting to lose him out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh?” Paul chimed, looking around the table at the three of them before settling his gaze on John. “What is it?”

Paul leaned forward at the same time John leaned over the table, as if to tell Paul a secret, and Paul almost got carried away. It felt important, but he felt like he wanted to lean forward and claim John there, for both of them to be free again; why not in front of their friends? Why not in the open, like they had on the beach all that time ago back in Durness?

But the consequences caught up with Paul, so he stopped himself, and was glad of it. He let John stop moving forward too, and they locked eyes for a precious moment. Paul’s chest flipped in anticipation.

“We’re going to Germany,” John shared, barely able to keep his smirk under control. His eyes turned darker, like they were shadowing over the inner joy that Paul wanted to see, his suave hair-do curling at the front of his head in beautiful, precious auburn locks. Paul sighed silently in awe.

Then the words John had said gained his attention.

Before Paul could ask any questions, George picked up talking. “Allan’s sorted it, apparently,” he said, grinning wildly now. “All of it, just gotta’ tell parents n’ get passports and a drummer, and we’re good to go.”

“Is it just us going?” Paul pecked. “Or has Allan booked any other groups?”

“Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, I heard he’s thinking of sendin' over too,” George answered.

“Not bad,” Stuart declared, shrugging. “I’ve heard their drummer’s a good fella’.”

“We were considerin' havin' Pete Best - Mona’s boy - for our drummer,” Stu continued, nodding his head. “But John reckons you should have a say in that.”

Paul grinned and gave John a knowing glance. _You knew I’d choose you,_ it said.

John’s look replied without words, too.

_I knew._

“When abouts are we supposed to be leaving then?” Paul asked.

“Mid-August, Allan thinks,” John informed, smiling.

Paul’s mouth dropped open. “That’s far too soon!”

He was immediately soothed by John’s familiar wolfish grin. “Just like running away.”

“And Mrs Best says she’s cancelling tonight’s show,” George told Paul. “So we can tell our parents about it all. I’m headin’ off soon, getting the next bus. Come with us and I’ll help you break the news to yer’ old man,” George chuckled.

Paul was about to protest, because his heart twinged at the thought of leaving John so soon, but when he looked at him, and John shook his head, smiling that soft comfortingly smile, Paul felt a feeling that he hadn’t felt since before the dream about the golden, beautifully intricate patterned fob watch; before, even, their first kiss.

_We have all the time in the world._

Paul nodded at George, “Okay,” he agreed, smiling.

George stood up, ready to head back outside into the white skies, expecting Paul to follow. So Paul stood up too, and then John, and then Stuart, all ready to head home, all ready for the rest of the immediate future.

John hadn’t taken his eyes off Paul yet, and Paul couldn’t help but feel whole – like he was protected, always.

When they all started to wander back up the steps to leave the basement, John tugged on Paul’s guitar-strap and pulled him back down into the empty club.

Paul yelped a little bit as he stumbled, his long legs flailing slightly as John held him against the wall, out of sight from the others.

But any acts of defiance were lost as John pressed his lips against Paul’s.

And this time, it was not angry, and it didn’t feel like a kiss goodbye.

It felt like a kiss of hope; a kiss of life; a kiss of love.

True love; the love and sanctuary that Paul had found with John when they were barely anything more than just young and oblivious, when it was nothing more than the music that tied them in this knot they had somehow wound themselves into.

And it was not a knot that Paul never intended to undo.

When John pulled off Paul’s lips, his hand bunched in Paul’s coat, Paul smiled softly and smoothly slid away, about to continue walking up the stairs to leave the house and get the bus home, oddly looking forward to being sat on the vehicle again, to drive through Penny Lane and back up home, George beside him, just like how things used to be.

But he felt John’s warm, strong hands on his hips, pulling him towards him, holding him from behind, and John whispered in a tune so familiar to Paul that it didn’t feel like a song anymore – it felt like a promise.

“So, Paulie,” John chuckled down Paul’s ear, breathing over him warmly and lovingly, like they had done as the light of the morning sun scintillated off him like he was the light of life, the eye of Paul’s storm.  “ _Come and go with me…?”_

Paul snorted and laughed along with John once the lyrics from the song escaped his mouth, and they acted as though it was nothing more than an insignificant private joke between the two lads from Liverpool who did nothing more than listen to the radio on a rainy Sunday afternoon, tug at acoustic guitars like they were the true Eddie Cochrans, and imagine that the world was already at their feet, like they could trample all over it as though it was nothing more than a welcome mat.

But Paul knew they still were those same boys. They still shared the same goal, and they still shared the same love; so long as that love provided them with the power needed to sing, to speak, to light up a world still so dark, then they would be fine. They had their sanctuary. They had each other, like they had unknowingly promised themselves the moment they first met.

When the boys were finally outside, George chimed from ahead of them: “Aw, _bless_ – the sun’s come out for us!”

And it had.

It really had.

So that’s the story of how they started. That remarkable day on the 6th of July, 1957 – up to where this story ends.

But, of course, it wasn’t truly over there.

Where we leave John and Paul in this adventure, it is summer once again; a new adventure awaits warmly within each characters grasps – they were half-way through the year 1960; forever was just around the corner, for each and every person.

And the rest, _as they say -_ was history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it then!
> 
> I feel slightly emotional about the ending of this story of mine, if I'm totally honest. Despite my recurring absences, it has taken up a huge part of my life and the characters have kept me company inside my head whenever times have gotten harder, which they have done, over these past few months.
> 
> Unfortunately, as we know, John and Paul did not have all the time in the world, as Paul's dream predicted in this fanfiction. I feel that it is very important of me to mention this on this day in particular, as today is the 8th of December, 2013. Thirty-three years ago, the John Lennon we have all loved was shot dead, and a precious light went out in the world. This is not something I wish to romantisise via John and Paul's relationship in this story, not just because by 1980, John and Paul were definitely leading different lives; but I would like to use this as an opportunity to say that all those who loved John personally should be remembered, too, even those who have passed away themselves over the time in-between John's death and now, and forever beyond this point - Paul, Cynthia, Yoko, Sean and Julian, George, Ringo, John's Auntie Mimi, May Pang - it would be petty to list them all, but let's bear them in mind today as well, in John's memory.
> 
> Thank you for believing and reading this story of mine.
> 
> For one last time with Come And Go With Me, please leave comments for me. None will go unappreciated.
> 
> Lastly, peace and love to you all.
> 
> And Rest In Peace, John Winston Ono Lennon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Celebrations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138649) by [distinguished_like](https://archiveofourown.org/users/distinguished_like/pseuds/distinguished_like)




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